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Towards Trans-species Empathy and Imagination
by Mingyue Zhang
Instructor: Mark Wigley
    During a mountain walk in China, I encountered some steps carved into the mountain rock, while the rest of the rock face was covered by moss. It suddenly reminded me of a Tang Dynasty poem by Wei Wang (王维, 701-761), "Sit down and look at the greenness of the ashy moss/ That is about to shin up human's cloth. (坐看苍苔色，欲上人衣来。)”

    This moment of dissolved oneness was the time I realize that Chinese "兴会”(more than poetic evocation) could be translated as non-human centric trans-species encounter. This is the beginning where I started to trace back the Chinese classics in our current context, if it is true that contemporaneity must age in order to write itself. The outcome, with classics as the  manifesto in themselves and my thinking as the footnotes for them, is generated in Prof. Mark Wigley's Seminar of plants and Lina Bo, one of the most inspiring conversations during my time at GSAPP.
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