Origin and Obscurity Revealed and Aligned
1987
pencil and watercolor on paper on board, wood frame
13 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches
Origin and Obscurity Revealed and Aligned provides a detail of Garden Where the Wild Grass Obscures the True Pearl, a site-specific park proposal for New York City’s Chinatown in 1987. In the drawing, the park is shaped as an oyster, with the central point of the park containing a metaphorical pearl, a place where, at the time that Chin surveyed the site, a homeless Chinese man had set up an elaborate labyrinthine shelter.
After the shelter was destroyed by authorities, a feng shui master indicated that the selection of the site by this homeless person was an important sign and must be marked or commemorated. Chin proposed a paved pattern in the configuration of a ba gua or eight-diagram Taoist amulet. The trash or bad energy of the area would be buried and then controlled by the protective symbolism of the stones. Origin and Obscurity Revealed and Aligned is the drawing of that point within the park.