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DREAMING OF BEING A BUTTERFLY (2024)

Zhu Gaocanyue: In the past year, I walked around the riverside near my home day by day. A mind flying away, feet touching ground, daylight becoming dreams. I find myself waking up in sweat some mornings, feeling exhausted. An entire lifetime in a dream dissipates in a second. And the records I wrote are broken.

The illusion seems alive, the reality is still touchable. I can not tell which is more meaningful.

“Once upon a time, Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly, a vivid and lifelike butterfly, feeling that it was enjoying itself. He was completely unaware of being Zhuangzi. Suddenly, he woke up, and then he was undeniably Zhuangzi. He could not told whether he was Zhuangzi who had just dreamt of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being Zhuangzi. There must be a distinction between Zhuangzi and the butterfly. This is what is called the Transformation of Things.”

-- “Qiwulun,” Zhuangzi

The butterfly is me, and me is the butterfly. It flies through every breath in, every breath out.

November, 2023
Providence, RI, U.S.A.

4⅛ x 5 inch
20 pages

Artist: Zhu Gaocanyue

30 copies, numbered; printed in April 2024, Providence.
Risograph with black ink, hardback, laser print with white ink. Accordion.