Ritual of Ama’s Belief
Yuqing Zhu
As we age, the childhood memories we treasure shift from the sweetness of candy or playful moments with friends to the seemingly ordinary acts, like eating dinner with family or climbing mountains to worship Buddha. These moments become cherished family traditions—ones I hope to pass on to future generations. My thesis is a book—a memory archive—documenting this family ritual: climbing mountains to worship Buddha.
The book primarily consists of video footage I captured in 2024 during a return to my hometown, Fujian, China, where I joined relatives in this sacred practice. I selected and edited stills from these videos and incorporated them into the book. A small portion of images were either photographed in New York or sourced online, then edited and rearranged to achieve my vision.
This book offers a first-person, immersive journey through my most treasured memories. Inspired by Buddhism’s belief in the cycle of cause and effect, the book itself is cyclical—beginning seamlessly from any point and revealing the full experience as you complete it. It can be engaged in multiple ways: standing upright to explore from all angles, laid flat like a traditional book, or spread out like a Tang dynasty painting for a circular experience.
More than a vessel for my memories, this book is a hope that such traditions can endure, resisting the erosion of time in our fast-paced world.