Spring: settle debts; summer: reverse misfortunes; winter: redeem souls

The exhibition takes its title from a proverb recorded in ethnographic studies of the Yi people of Yinuo, Liangshan: “Spring: settle debts; Summer: reverse misfortunes; Winter: redeem souls.”

Existing ethnographic scholarship generally understands this saying not as a universal moral injunction, but within the context of a specific seasonal ritual order.

In this sense, “spring,” “summer,” and “winter” function not simply as markers of time, but as distinct modes of response. To settle debts in spring refers to restoring imbalances and repaying what remains owed; to reverse misfortunes in summer denotes the displacement and resolution of curses, calamities, or adverse conditions; while to redeem souls in winter concerns the calling back and resettling of souls that have become lost or estranged. Read in this way, the proverb articulates not a homogeneous, linear conception of time, but a cyclical structure organized around rupture, response, and repair.

The title is adopted not primarily for its association with a localized sense of mysticism, but because it offers a compelling conceptual framework through which to reconsider contemporary experience. The world we inhabit today can no longer be readily understood as a coherent, stable, and self-contained whole. More often, history appears in fragments; language repeatedly reaches its limits; and perception, along with psychic experience, gradually disperses across objects, bodies, and the fabric of everyday life.