Lee Mingwei
Taiwan/United States b.1964
Bodhi Project 2006
Bodhi tree, marble seats
Commissioned by the Queensland Government
for the Millennium Arts Project, Queensland Cultural Centre
Marble seats designed by Lee Mingwei
and carved by Paul Stumkat, Queensland

 

Lee Mingwei, who was born in Taipei in 1964, now lives and works in New York and San Francisco. His Bodhi Project is part of the public art program for the Queensland Cultural Centre and involved the transfer of a Bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa) seedling from Sri Lanka to Brisbane. The project does not create an object so much as a process of cultural exchange and a deeply symbolic gesture of goodwill.

The Bodhi tree, often thought of as the mythical World Tree or the Tree of Life on the Indian subcontinent, is the oldest tree depicted in Indian art and literature and is sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists.

The sapling for the Bodhi Project originated from a Bodhi tree in Kelaniya Raja Maha Viharaya (Raja Maha Temple) in Sri Lanka. The tree at that temple grew from a cutting from the Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka (over 2000 years old and still living), which in turn came from the original Bodhi tree at the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya in the Indian state of Bihar. It was at this temple that the historical Buddha and founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, is said to have attained enlightenment. The tree for Lee Mingwei’s project has been gifted through the Raja Maha Temple to the Chung Tian Temple in Brisbane, who have supported the project with their blessing and assistance in procuring the sapling.

The tree and the carved marble seats are intended as a focus for gathering and contemplation. Mingwei’s intention is to generate greater awareness of ordinary things – transforming our perceptions of them and our actions in relation to them. This project is intended to be symbolic of a new phase in the cultural life of Brisbane. Rather than a completed project, it is the birth of a long-term work that engages with community, memory, nature and culture.