Ashes to Ashes is a set of eight life-size, blackened handmade objects (seven garden tools and one root vegetable) that appear as if unearthed from the soil.

Inspired by the Ng King Brothers Chinese Market Garden established by my father’s ancestral clan in 1921 in Allenton, Ashburton, this garden once supplied up to 70% of the South Island’s produce and housed up to eighty workers, including my grandfather, Ng Kew.

These tools evoke the deep connection to the land and labour passed down through generations, both in China and Aotearoa. They also represent the symbolic bones of my ancestors.

A larger version, The Lands Turned Beneath Their Hands, will be shown at Christchurch Art Gallery in He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (November 2025 – February 2027).