I created this picture while attending an artist in residence in a river village in Shanghai. I was given permission to build the set in my studio, so I ordered a bunch of paper funerary object kits from taobao (Chinese ebay) and spent many hot nights assembling the objects with a glue gun by myself. One day I got this very cold email from the guy that always delivers bad news for the big boss, and it said something like... the objects you built are bad luck for the village and our company and unless you remove them from your studio (and make work without content) we will terminate your residency.

Talking about death is not really acceptable in Chinese culture, but more importantly, a foreigner making art about Chinese spiritual practices and getting people to think beyond material reality was the big no-no. The decision for them to censor me was ultimately political, and the "bad luck" thing was a typical excuse. It was the straw that broke the water buffalo's back. So, I packed up and moved out, but I had to finish this picture, so I left the objects with my friend Jared, a great guy and an amazing painter from Australia.

After the whole debacle of leaving the residency due to censorship and then getting fired from my Art teaching job for teaching creative practices and self-expression, I had some free time.  Jared and I got the funerary objects and drove to an abandoned village that we had explored a few months back. All but one of the buildings had since been demolished. So, we set up my fictitious ghost apartment in a room with swallows nesting in the ceiling, dead rats that were flattened underneath what I ended up using for the bed, and outside, a bunch of villagers with torches eel fishing in the rice paddies.

Since we didn't have electricity, I decided to improvise with the lighting. I asked Jared to “paint” with the flashlight, while I popped off several flashes in various locations with a handheld flash. I wanted it to look otherworldly and stark at the same time. Probably the best part about this though, is that the villagers saw a bunch of flashing lights coming from an abandoned house and the next day they will find a full-on paper ghost apartment set up, complete with “Lucky Stiuke” cigarettes, a water cooler, an iphone, and much more! Maybe now, they won't tear the building down  and let the swallows nest in peace.