从西藏开始
It Began in Tibet

2014年1月，我们第一次来到西藏。
作为首批参与援藏项目的青年设计师，在张蓓的带领下，我们前往拉萨、日喀则及周边地区，调研当地的传统文化、传统手工艺与非物质文化遗产。
那时候，我们还是设计师，也还没有想到，香会成为后来持续进行的艺术实践。
在第一次调研中，我们接触到了当地的传统香文化。项目希望从西藏当地的文化和传统手工艺出发，研发一系列文化创意产品，香是其中一个方向。
为了真正理解香，我们没有只停留在产品和形式上。2014年4月，我们来到日喀则的扎什伦布寺，跟随寺院中的僧人和制香师傅，学习传统制香的完整过程。
从原料、配比、粉碎、混合，到加水、揉制、成型、晾晒，我们亲自参与其中。
我们至今记得，坐在地上揉搓香粉的感觉像小时候玩泥巴。天然的香料和药材混合在一起，手上的动作很简单，却需要安静下来。高原空气稀薄，房间里却一直留着草药和香料的气味。
湿润的香料被装进木制的筒状器具，通过人的力量挤压成一条连续的线香，再由手工整理、排列，等待自然晾干。
最后的线香并不笔直，也不完全均匀。人工挤压和整理留下的痕迹，让每一根香都带着材料和人的共同作用。
那时，我们关注的还是传统工艺、材料和文化，以及它们如何转化为新的产品。我们并没有意识到，这次经历会在多年以后与我们的艺术实践重新连接。
2016年，我们创作了第一件与香有关的作品《香画》。此后，香逐渐从产品研发中的一种传统材料，变成了我们持续研究和使用的创作媒介。
关注点也慢慢发生了变化。
最初，我们想的是如何把传统工艺转化成产品；后来，我们开始关注香被点燃之后发生的事情——烟如何移动，气味如何进入空气，材料如何一点一点消失，灰烬如何留下，以及时间如何参与其中。
从传统工艺到产品，再从产品回到材料本身。
回头看，我们与香的关系并没有一个明确的转折点。
它只是从2014年西藏的一次真实接触开始，慢慢延续到了今天。
如果要寻找我们这段实践最早的起点，大概就是那里。

In January 2014, we came to Tibet for the first time.
As two of the first young designers to participate in the Tibet support program, we traveled to Lhasa, Shigatse, and the surrounding areas with Zhang Bei, researching local traditions, traditional crafts, and intangible cultural heritage.
At the time, we were simply designers. We had no idea that incense would eventually become an ongoing part of our artistic practice.
During our first research trip, we encountered the traditional incense culture of Tibet. The project aimed to develop a series of cultural and creative products rooted in local culture and traditional crafts, with incense being one of the directions we explored.
To truly understand incense, we wanted to go beyond its appearance and its potential as a product. In April that year, we went to Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, where we learned the traditional incense-making process from monks and incense makers.
From selecting and measuring the ingredients, grinding and mixing them, to adding water, kneading, shaping, and drying, we took part in the entire process ourselves.
We still remember what it felt like to sit on the floor and knead the incense powder. It was a little like playing with mud as children. Natural aromatic plants and medicinal herbs were mixed together. The movements were simple, but they required us to slow down and become quiet. The air at that altitude was thin, while the room remained filled with the scent of herbs and incense.
The wet mixture was placed into a cylindrical wooden tool and pressed by hand into a continuous line of incense. The freshly formed incense was then arranged by hand on the floor and left to dry naturally.
The finished incense was neither perfectly straight nor completely uniform. The marks left by pressing and shaping by hand gave each stick a sense of direct contact between the material and the person making it.
At that time, our attention was still focused on traditional craft, materials, culture, and how they might be translated into new products. We did not realize that this experience would reconnect with our artistic practice years later.
In 2016, we created our first work related to incense, Incense Painting. From then on, incense gradually shifted from being a traditional material considered in product development to becoming a medium that we continue to research and work with today.
Our focus also began to change.
At first, we were interested in how traditional craft could be transformed into products. Later, we began to pay attention to what happens when incense is burned—how smoke moves, how scent enters the air, how the material gradually disappears, how ash remains, and how time becomes part of the process.
From traditional craft to products, and then from products back to the material itself.
Looking back, there was no single turning point in our relationship with incense.
It simply began with a real encounter in Tibet in 2014 and gradually continued into what we are doing today.
If we were to look for the earliest starting point of this practice, it was probably there.