Tang Mausoleum Long Grass

By deliberately avoiding the monumentality of ruins, Feng Yan shuns old and new dreams of supremacy and power. The photographer follows into the footsteps of archeologists and historians only to turn his gaze away from their findings and focus on what from time immemorial prospers unnoticed. Grass takes the place of monuments, leaving out achievements, destruction, and ruptures, and calling attention to a temporal scale that is greater than that of the history of Imperial China. Perhaps, one day botanists will assess that this kind of plant only grows in this area, giving a different spin to the notion of cradle of civilization. And perhaps impending climatic cataclysms will soon threaten what so far endured through such a long duration of time.

—Paola Iovene