"Do Baskets Dream of Shores or Sea"
An art installation featuring seven Vietnamese thúng chài (basket boats) lost amidst a sea of lanterns, inviting us all to float between what's before and ahead
An invitation to be lost in liminality
There is a place between what was and what's coming where we simply feel lost.
We feel it in the personal, when a relationship ends or an identity shifts and the future is still a fuzzy picture at best.
And we feel it in the cultural, in the disorientation of the diaspora, where the traditions we inherited don't quite fit the lives we're currently living.
We have an opportunity to sit in this liminal space, in being lost between the shore and sea, and allow ourselves to simply float for a moment.
Basket boats dreaming of what's left behind, floating among lanterns that light the way forward
Thúng chài—woven bamboo basket boats— represents livelihoods, resilience, freedom and a living wisdom between humans and the ocean. For generations they carried fish and families.
Now their world is shifting beneath them, their cultural meaning migrating from necessity to novelty.
They float between what they were and what they are becoming.
Lanterns carry wishes for what's ahead. In Taiwan, prayers are written on their skin and released into the night sky. In Japan, they drift downriver bearing messages to ancestors.
For generations, they have been how people cast hope forward into what they cannot yet see.
They are not looking back. They are light held out for what has not yet arrived.
Behind The Scenes
SUPPORT OUR DREAMING BASKETS
We are carrying a precious living heritage to Burning Man. Your support means the world, not only to the artists and volunteers who make it possible, but also to the Vietnamese craftsmen and artisans.
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