Garden of Earthly Delights

For Garden of Earthly Delights (2016), Zhou collaborated with a puppet-theater troupe from Taishun. Set between the idyllic landscape of south Zhejiang and its decaying industrial zones, the film’s voiceover adapts the quotations of Zhuangzi, whose paradoxes are prompts to philosophical speculation. The marionette figures allude to the Daoist myth of the Eight Immortals as well as the eponymous hellscape by Dutch Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch, who also lends a title to Ship of Fools (2018). In this sculptural installation the eight immortals from The Garden of Earthly Delights are presented on their passage across the sea. A motor shakes the boat, though whether its passengers are in the grip of divine revelation, delirium, or madness is left to the viewer to decide.