000001Mythology can be approached as a collection of artefacts reminding us of humanity's inability to tolerate not knowing. That alone makes it worth studying attentively, with respect for every detail.

The unknown is not merely uncomfortable. Without an explanation, it may become a threat.
An abstract explanation, however, is rarely enough. It needs a plot and a genre. Causes must lead somewhere; actions must have consequences. The crueller the storyline, the clearer its consequences may appear. And consequences are perhaps the most desirable knowledge when facing the unknown: they offer the comforting belief that it has been understood, conquered, and defeated.
What follows is a simple instruction: tell it and retell it until the end of time.

Yet mythology and its imagery offer an almost inexhaustible source of fantasies, delusions, and escapism. That in itself is fascinating.

The project "Ancient Legends" feeds on this source without expectations and ignores its promises. Existing myths, legends, ancient texts, and puzzles provide the material, even as their original conclusions are rejected. Their plots may be displaced, combined, contradicted, or turned inside out.

The opportunity is to dive into Conceptual Hyper Mannerism—to sip the sweet potion while retaining the ability to spit it out before the poison entwined within reaches the brain.

The myth remains recognisable. But nothing more.

The Ancient Legends of China 

The first encounter with China exposed an unexpected gap in knowledge.
What had seemed culturally distant revealed itself as something whose influence was already familiar. Architecture, monumental objects, imagery, philosophy, food, and countless details of everyday culture exposed connections that had previously remained unnoticed.

The encounter with Chinese legends intensified this contradiction.
Their course of events often resisted familiar expectations of how a story should organise itself or where its meaning should finally settle. Their cruelty could become extravagant; philosophy, absurdity, violence, humour, and beauty could inhabit the same narrative without asking to be reconciled.
Killing an enemy might not complete the matter. Turning them into a delicious dish and serving it to someone beloved could apparently provide a more satisfactory conclusion.

This unfamiliarity offered another entrance into the mythology: an aesthetic that seemed unknown and yet strangely recognisable through the traces of its influence.
The chapter "The Ancient Legends of China" emerged from this contradiction. It does not attempt to explain Chinese mythology or represent Chinese culture. It follows an encounter with something insufficiently known and impossible to leave alone.