River is My Hometown

Where to return? Artist River Cao glimpsed the potential answer to this question in Rilke’s poem “in my invisible landscape, the most beautiful, you make me more angel-known, those are invisible.” – Duino Elegies (1923). As the hum of mourning begins to arise, a traditional funeral ceremony “Plead for Water” from his hometown helps to return him as a revenant to a homeland that transcends the geographic concept. It is a place more private and intimate, where the emotion of grief has been reconsidered since then.