The Serene Garden 
Single channel HD Video (20’30”), various home decorations, textile and wood construction | 2019 

As a display of the human fantasy about nature, a garden never presents “nature” in its authentic form. The desire of controlling forces of nature is transformed into the rituals of gardening and the artificial construction of a garden becomes the essence of ideas about nature in different cultural and historical contexts. 

By following a simulated guided mediation, Ye shows in her video the process of constructing a Zen garden miniature with diverse home decorations. She juxtaposes different garden landscapes from China and Europe, demonstrating the mutual affection and at times a misconstruction of aesthetics and traditions of garden design in these different geographical contexts. The absurdity of the mimicking nature in decorative products is emphasized in an installation that highlights the artificiality of these objects.