The Second Tombstone

Memorial Park design
Taiyuan, China
Dec 2021
Individual Work

In some rural areas in northern China, the custom of Ghost Marriage still remains. In the Ghost Marriage arrangement, parents mate their sons who passed away prematurely with a dead woman to make up for the regrets that the sons did not have a chance for normal life. Ghost Marriage has led to criminal trading of corps and even murders. Young women who are critically ill and unmarried women who were newly buried become a “merchandise" that can make profit. Women who are mentally retarded ore physically disabled are murdered and trafficked. Their corps are buried with strangers to form underworld families. In the bloody transaction, the dead are more valuable than the living. Therefore, in my memorial park, a "tombstone" is established to commemorate such victims. The second tombstone symbolizes that their souls are free.