An origin point for this body of work is an oracle bone character for the word “no”, said to represent a calyx, a root, or a bird flying into the sky. Ho is interested in questioning how the image of “no” underlies the linguistic, therapeutic, and ecological frameworks that run through Ho’s visual and text-based practices.

TRIPLE BURNER FLOWER FIELD, exhibited at Oxygen Art Centre in 2025, included an installation of ceramics, textiles and scent pieces, as well as a video featuring and an original musical arrangement by the artist.

The exhibition attended to the use of common plants while speaking to first-generation settlers about agriculture and medicine. Ho drew on archival and oral accounts of the role of the barefoot doctor during the Cultural Revolution, the agricultural land defense movement in Hong Kong, and the early Chinese market gardens of Nelson, BC. By highlighting the spiritual and medicinal uses of four plants: tea, yarrow, poppy and mugwort, the exhibition examines how life is separated into the categories of useful commodities or invasive weeds within the framework of global capitalism. Using emptiness and manifold duality as guiding principles, art making becomes a kind of serious play that points to interdependence with land and beings while eschewing human supremacy.

Exhibition credits:
Interviews with Wang Zhao and Ling Yin Kung
Ceramics by Ayesh Kanani
Mandarin interpretation by Serena Tang
Mandarin translation by Xuan Ye

Thank you:
Yarrow Intergenerational Society for Justice, WePress Community Art Space, and Tressa Ford and JP Stienne at the Nelson Museum Archives and Gallery.

Documentation by Kenton Doupe for photos 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, and 16 below.