Kora

Overview

Jawshing Arthur Liou creates video installations that employ digital technology to transform representation and reality. Kora (2011–12) highlights Liou’s 2,300-kilometre expedition from Lhasa through the Tibetan Plateau, ending at Mount Everest and Mount Kailash. The cathartic journey, which followed the passing of his daughter Vivian, included a four-day kora – a walking circumambulation – around Mount Kailash at an elevation between five and six thousand metres. The work retraces the steps of his search while presenting vast mountain landscapes, invoking a reverence for nature and space for spiritual reflection and sanctuary.
Liou captured the experience of his pilgrimage on an ultra-high-definition 4K camera, and structured it with a minimalistic acoustic soundtrack. Focusing on the path ahead from a first-person perspective, the work simulates the otherworldliness of his journey, with startling, ever-changing vistas witnessed through the hallucinatory scrim of limited oxygen. Liou’s slow, mesmerizing excursion around the sacred mountain wends through a pass strewn with colourful prayer flags – evidence of the spiritual quests of thousands of pilgrims before him.

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 12