Reinventing the Library Cave: A Conversation with Xie Xiaoze
Xie Xiaoze is the Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University. His work spans painting, installation, photography, and multimedia projects that explore themes of history, memory, and knowledge. In this interview, Xie discusses his multidisciplinary project focused on the Dunhuang library cave (Cave 17) at the Mogao Grottoes in northwestern China. Discovered in 1900, this sealed chamber contained over 50,000 manuscripts, paintings, and documents dating from the 4th to 11th centuries. These materials were subsequently dispersed to institutions worldwide, primarily the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. This conversation was conducted as part of the Dispersed Chinese Art Digitization Project at the Center for the Art of East Asia, University of Chicago.
Ellen Larson: To start, could you tell us about your background and what brought you to the Dunhuang project?
Xie Xiaoze: In the past, I've been making works—paintings, installations, video art—related to books in libraries, and then the destruction, burning of books, destruction of libraries, censorship. My work has always been concerned with history, time and memory, and the vulnerability of historical memory and knowledge.
The Dunhuang theme began with an opportunity in 2016, when I was asked to join a small VIP tour group organized by the Dunhuang Foundation, Mimi Gates and Lucy Sun. That was my first time being in Dunhuang, though I had seen pictures of the murals before. At that time, they were discussing establishing an artist-in-residence program at the Mogao Grottoes.
The next year, [The Dunhuang Foundation] invited me as the first artist-in-residence in their program. I felt a certain pressure because the status of Dunhuang is iconic. So much had been done before by people like Zhang Daqian (张大千), Cheng Shuhong (常书鸿), and Duan Wenjie (段文杰). And so, I felt I had to do something different—something new.
I did quite a bit of research before I went in the summer of 2017. I was reading a lot, and I found my thinking always went back to the library cave. It has such a fascinating, troubled history and this vast, encyclopedic content of cultural relics it stored.
Ellen Larson: Can you describe how you began working on the project during your residency?
Xie Xiaoze: In the summer of 2017, I was there for about a month. I got a very nice studio at the Dunhuang Academy. It had long wooden walls with embedded metal panels so that I could easily stick large sheets of paper on the board using magnets. I started a scroll drawing using the full-length, eight-foot Chinese ba-chi (八尺). This is a 2.5m long full sheet of paper.
Section by section, I started to make ink drawings that combined my notes, quotes, images, and diagrams. And based on that, I started to come up with ideas for three-dimensional sculptures and installations. But it also meant these drawings, by themselves, could be independent work. That's how it started out.
I continued to expand the themes in my scroll to include ancient Chinese astronomy and astrology. I also looked into extinct languages in the Western region and incorporated some extinct languages into the "Rain of Languages"—rain of words—in addition to Chinese characters.
It wasn't until 2019 that I was able to start experimenting with sculptures. In 2019, I went to Shenzhen and found this resin factory and started making some tests. The work was disrupted by Covid-19, but eventually, in the spring of 2023, I was able to get back and produce a group of three-dimensional works.
Most recently, I developed a 3D projection titled "Models of the Universe." It's a 3D projection mapping—an immersive kind of projection on a volume based on the interior space of the library cave. It looks like something is happening inside a cave with different kinds of Buddhist cosmology, like Sanjie Jiudi (三界九地, "three realms and nine levels"), and different kinds of mandalas transforming into one another. The models go from figurative to abstract, becoming purely geometrical.
Ellen Larson: One of the things we're really interested in is how you're moving between different mediums. You started with two-dimensional drawings, then incorporated three-dimensional objects, and now are working with digital video.
Xie Xiaoze: I've always primarily been a painter, and I had my training in architecture for five years from Tsinghua. This played a big role in this project, because of the imagination of the interior space and all kinds of structure. Those drawings are a combination of Chinese brush techniques—traditional Chinese art elements like landscapes, rocks, water—combined with architectural language. I've practiced calligraphy—not super intensively—but I did some when I was younger. In the past few years since 2017, I've gotten more interested, seriously, in calligraphy. I feel like this project allows me to combine all these different aspects of my experience, knowledge, and skills.
Ellen Larson: I think it's important to note that while you have drawn inspiration from a physical place that one can actually enter. But then in terms of the work itself, you have created an experience that one cannot enter. Rather the viewing experience takes place entirely from the outside. What do you think about that?
Xie Xiaoze: Yes, exactly. This inside and outside (relationship)—and that outside form is in fact a cast of the negative space, a cast of the inside.
The Shenzhen show is different. It doesn't include a 3D projection but includes an amplified version of the library cave. Because of the scale of the museum space, it's much bigger and becomes a VR experience space. People line up to wear the headset and walk inside this tent-like structure covered with thick handmade paper. I collaborated with a group of local calligraphers to write these floating characters to create a larger version of the "rain of words" idea.
Ellen Larson: You also talked about your background in architecture. Is that something you're always thinking about regardless of the medium—that kind of spatial presentation or physical engagement that a viewer might have with your work?
Xie Xiaoze: My architectural background and interest in space and the experience of space is always there when thinking about this whole project. Even though the first works were ink drawings, they were really more about space. In this library cave project, it started out with the internal space as a basic unit, this recurring theater space in which all kinds of dramas happen.
Greg Panciera: Is there a central idea that you keep finding yourself coming back to in working through all the different stages and manifestations of this project?
Xie Xiaoze: At the beginning, it sometimes seemed scattered. There might have been a disconnection between the analysis of various materials and textures of objects found in the cave, and the specific words from Buddhist sutras. But eventually, things started to connect.
When I was studying various mandalas found in the cave, I suddenly realized these mandalas are also world models. They are not unlike those in the paintings of the “Three Realms and Nine Levels” (Sanjie jiudi zhi tu 三界九地之圖)
Later, I found this tapestry in the MET collection from the Yuan dynasty called the "Buddhist Cosmological Mandala with Mount Meru." It's literally a combination of mandala and elements from Sanjie Jiudi. So they all started to connect.
The different mandalas are always connected to specific sutras—each specific form is based on a specific sutra. There are similarities between them, and each one also evolves over time, becoming very elaborate and complex. I felt it was a bit overwhelming at first. But in the end, things started to come together. It's all about “world view” or “world model”. So this theme of "Models of the Universe" or "Models of the World" only came up at the last. It's something that everything was leading toward.
Ellen Larson: In looking at your website, you mention that the project is described as "reinventing the library cave at Dunhuang." I'm interested in how you're using the word "reinventing." You've chosen "reinventing" over "reconstructing," "restoring," or "reconnecting." What does the word "reinventing" mean to you within this project?
Xie Xiaoze: Reconstructing is more in the sense of imagining a more complete scene from history—how did it look before 1907, before Stein showed up and took stuff out? We have a good idea about how it kind of looked when Pelliot was there in 1908. That's imagination, and imagination incorporates a certain degree of reinvention—but if there was only that, I would call it "reimagining" or "reconstructing" historical settings.
The reinvention part—to use the word in a way that lives up to its weight—would be the later part, where I freely combined different mandalas, turned them into geometric forms, and came up with these interlocking structures. In that case, I started to feel like I was setting myself free without conforming to a specific kind of Buddhist diagram or theory. It would be like, "Based on this, what could my own model of the universe look like?"
There's also one version about the analysis of various materials—paper, silk, linen, wood. They all become dissolved and settle into layers, like the formation of rocks. This is practically not possible; it's really inventing new ways of thinking that sculptors, artists, perhaps poets might explore, as opposed to how archaeologists would work.
There was one drawing, the very first section of my scroll called "haofan jingzhi" (vast volumes), that imagined how the scrolls were stacked from the end wall and then from walls on both sides. That is more like a legitimate archeological reconstruction of what could have happened in history. So that was closer to the more scholarly side. And at the other end of the spectrum is the more crazy, kind of, artistic side.
Greg Panciera: Do you ever struggle to figure out which side you want to be investing your efforts in, or where the line is between these different disciplines?
Xie Xiaoze: That's a good question. I am still quite ignorant about Dunhuang xue (敦煌学), the scholarship surrounding Dunhuang. My excuse is always that I'm not a historian or archaeologist—I'm not qualified. I'm an artist; I can do whatever I want. Nothing is really wrong, right? So I feel liberated. I feel like I could be doing things freely, tianma xingkong (天马行空, "like a heavenly horse soaring across the sky"), with these ideas coming to mind.
The other liberating thought I had was: this is not a finished work, it's a work in progress. These are notes, sketches that allow me to understand things and configure things. Let this process be very honest…there are mistakes—in the beginning, the calligraphy was very raw. Ok, so what? But the whole process is there. There are dates on the scroll, and it's a very real kind of documentation.
So, with these two things in mind, I feel like I can freely move between the two approaches without worry. Often when giving talks, I would make fun of myself, calling myself an amateur archaeologist, or scholar, or pseudo-archaeologist. During a conversation with Wu Hung, he would quickly point out: "you are a contemporary artist!" But the idea is to combine analytical thinking with creative thinking, imaginative thinking, a poetic kind of wondering—this is a new direction for me, something that is interesting.
Ellen Larson: And along similar lines, thinking about your movement between being a contemporary artist, an archaeologist, or in your words, a "pseudo archaeologist," I'm also interested in your own experience of spending time at Dunhuang where the library cave is physically located, and the British Library where many of these sutras are now kept. What was that experience like to see those sutras for the first time and how do you think about the separation between these places?
Xie Xiaoze: When I was in residency at Mogao, I stayed at the Mogao Shanzhuang (Mogao Village hotel). From the window of my hotel room, I could see rows of caves in the northern section where the monks once lived, and to the left side was the section where the library cave is located. In the morning, I would sometimes walk out of the hotel gate, passing by the Daoshi Ta (道士塔, "Daoist Pagoda") where Wang Yuanlu (王圆箓) was buried. Then I would enter the area with many caves, including the library cave.
Being there, and being there alone most of the time, was a very special experience—a sort of isolation from the rest of the world. It was like living in a different time zone, about 100 years ago in 1907-1908. That time seemed very recent, like yesterday—Stein had just taken those scrolls away, and Wang Yuanlu was still around. That experience of the place was very important for the kind of poetic expression that came after. I carried that feeling back to California where I worked in my studio. But the experience, the feeling I got there, was irreplaceable.
I did see one Northern Dynasty scroll in person in the storage area of the Dunhuang Academy—one of the few items in the Academy's collection that's actually from the cave. It was the 大般涅槃经 (Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra), 如来性品, a Northern Dynasty script in clerical style. Later this calligraphic style was used a lot in my ink drawings and sculptures. As for the British Library, I haven't seen much there yet. But later this month when I travel there, that will be the time I get to see more.
Ellen Larson: What made you choose the VR or digital projection tools that you’re using now, rather than working in 2D, or with 3D sculpture objects?
Xie Xiaoze: From the beginning, even when making those two-dimensional drawings, I was always thinking about three-dimensional space. For a long time, I'd been thinking about realizing this simple version of the "Rain of Words" with 3D projection. Then when an opportunity came up and I had more people I could collaborate with, that's how this 3D projection came about.
The VR thing was different—I wasn't thinking about VR at the beginning. For the Pingshan Art Museum show, I was planning to do this 3D projection, but because of funding limitations, they couldn't do it. Later they suggested using an existing VR project and letting my work become part of that bigger project. That's how that happened. I ended up having meetings with this VR team a few times and learning about it. I had some ideas that weren't very suitable, and they pointed them out. It was a learning process.
This VR experience of covering your view so that you're insulated from your immediate physical world and enter another space—that's very interesting, quite fascinating. It also parallels the imagined experience of meditation, when you enter another mental state.
Xie Xiaoze's "Dunhuang: Reinventing the Library Cave" project has been exhibited at venues including the OCT Contemporary Art Terminal in Shenzhen, the Dunhuang Contemporary Art Museum in Shanghai, the Pingshan Art Museum in Shenzhen, the British Library in London, and the Tsinghua University Art Museum in Beijing.