Part of the Series The Other Side of Mountains, 2025
Urna x Le Lin
2024
Intaglio Drypoint on Hahnemühle German Etching paper 250g
Paper: 365cm x 560cm (144” x 221”)
Printed Image: 300cm x 455cm (118” x 179”)
Urna x Le Lin
2024
Intaglio Drypoint on Hahnemühle German Etching paper 250g
Paper: 365cm x 560cm (144” x 221”)
Printed Image: 300cm x 455cm (118” x 179”)
姥姥家 Forgotten Fragrance of My Grandmother’s Living Room was created in Montréal, Canada, a home twice removed. This print depicts a translation of Urna’s grandmother’s tapestry in drypoint intaglio, a technique completely removed from traditional Mongolian arts.
Recent generations of Mongolian descendents migrate for work, education, and life. In contrast, the ancestors of Mongolian people moved with their herds in search of water and pasture, migrating with the rhythm of nature. Urna’s family is no exception—her grandparents left Inner Mongolia for Beijing to pursue work, and there, they put down new roots and let their lives blossom. Urna and her mother and sisters grew up in Beijing. To her, the traces of Mongolian heritage are not just found in textbooks—they are in the aroma of milk tea rising from her grandmother’s thermos, in the portrait of Genghis Khan hanging in the study, in the grand tapestry in the living room depicting endless grasslands. Urna is a third generation Mongolian living in Beijing and can no longer speak the Mongolian language. Nonetheless, as the poet Xi Murong once wrote: "Even though I can no longer speak my mother tongue, please accept my sorrow and my joy. I am a child of the plateau, too. There is a song in my heart, and in that song are my father’s steppe and my mother’s river."
Now, Urna’s studies have brought her far away to Canada. Migration and nomadism seem to be etched into her destiny. This print is a response—an echo of her memory and deep longing for those boundless grasslands.
Recent generations of Mongolian descendents migrate for work, education, and life. In contrast, the ancestors of Mongolian people moved with their herds in search of water and pasture, migrating with the rhythm of nature. Urna’s family is no exception—her grandparents left Inner Mongolia for Beijing to pursue work, and there, they put down new roots and let their lives blossom. Urna and her mother and sisters grew up in Beijing. To her, the traces of Mongolian heritage are not just found in textbooks—they are in the aroma of milk tea rising from her grandmother’s thermos, in the portrait of Genghis Khan hanging in the study, in the grand tapestry in the living room depicting endless grasslands. Urna is a third generation Mongolian living in Beijing and can no longer speak the Mongolian language. Nonetheless, as the poet Xi Murong once wrote: "Even though I can no longer speak my mother tongue, please accept my sorrow and my joy. I am a child of the plateau, too. There is a song in my heart, and in that song are my father’s steppe and my mother’s river."
Now, Urna’s studies have brought her far away to Canada. Migration and nomadism seem to be etched into her destiny. This print is a response—an echo of her memory and deep longing for those boundless grasslands.
