Can I Plant the Flowers for You?

“Can I Plant the Flowers for You” is a digital archive of care and resistance. In this project, I 3D-scan the bedrooms of my Chinese immigrant friends and digitally plant flowers inside them—tender, ephemeral spaces that push back against silence and erasure. These rooms become living love letters, honoring the beauty of our voices, our spaces, and our presence.

Tools: Unreal Engine, Ableton Live, Maya

Poems

Dear Z

The electricity cuts out. I step into my bedroom and fall into complete darkness.

I wish for a candle.Not to light the room, but to keep me company—to know I’m not the only one caught in the claw

of this city’s night.

I listen to your footsteps—one, two, three… I catch the moment when your rings accidentally

strike mine.

You ask me to dance.

I open my eyes and see the moonlight, the clock, and your face.

We laugh at the penguin, the wind, and your silly hidden thoughts.

The room shimmers with our swing.

Dear L

Remember how we used to go to protests together?

The evening sun falls on your shoulders, the spots like petals. I text you three lines, you reply to

me with five. Words turn into nuts—roasted, cranky, and flavored with spice.

You told me that in Peru, to give back to Mother Earth, people place coca leaves into the creek.

I wish I could run along the creek with you, in the forests of South America, with my bare feet.

I feel the tiny pebbles beneath me, wet and cool.

We are free.

Dear Y

I want to build a garden for you. But it’s going to be a garden made of ice.

You can’t force everything to be perfect in life, can you?

Sometimes, you are a butterfly—you land on my shoulder, and before I can turn to speak, you’ve

flown away.

Other times, you are that plant with a million thorns. I don’t know who gives me the courage to

pick you up, when no one else dares.

I want to become a narcissus in your garden, gazing into the pond.

We can gossip about the pink tulip living next door.

Dear J

If I can choose someone to dive into the hard rain with, I will choose you.

We left the car, left the road, and left the sun behind.

Sunshine is your favorite thing in life, or am I remembering that wrong?

Let the dark night be our disguise, our mentor, and our light.

We can sit on the bench and pretend to read a book.

If we run into a grocery store, can you find a tin of tomatoes for me?

we can cook pasta when the rain stops.

Concepts

Everyone has their own unique way of expressing love. For me, it is planting and arranging flowers for my friends. However, many of my friends are immigrants from China, and especially during times of uncertainty, even the simple task of caring for a pot of flowers can feel like a burden—because we do not know how long we will be able to stay in one place, or where we might have to move next.

This inspired me to begin 3D scanning my friends’ bedrooms and planting flowers there digitally. This project is rooted in the word “erasable.” As Chinese immigrants, we face severe censorship in China, while our voices are often ostracized or stereotyped in the United States. It can feel as though our words, our spaces, and even our existence are at constant risk of being erased.

But is that the whole story? Flowers bloom only for a few days or weeks, and yet it is their ephemeral nature that makes them so captivating. Anyone can appreciate a delicate floral arrangement, but to create one, the flowers must be cut from their mother plants. Like those flowers, we—Chinese immigrants—do not know how long our presence, conversations, or memories will last. But they are still valuable, still worth archiving. Even though we are “cut away” from our home country and often have to bend ourselves to fit in, we can still create something beautiful. One does not need to speak a certain language to feel beauty.

Research /Background

Censorship in China

Censorship has been a topic that I care deeply about, and I have been conducting research on it since my freshman year at NYU. In the essay I published on Mercer Street in 2022, titled “The Silence that Kills,” I pointed out how “in China, the Chinese I speak has to be twisted, spliced, and edited; the Chinese I write can be easily banned, deleted, and forgotten; and the Chinese I see is already censored, crushed, and sugar-coated. I almost forget how the language is supposed to look and sound.”

Topics related to politics are often filtered and censored, and this has affected people’s daily lives—from what movies we can see in the theater, to what religion we can practice, to who we are allowed to love.

Why Bedrooms?

Bedrooms are our last resort in a chaotic and uncertain life. We spend a large portion of our money on the right to temporary living in this private space. We do not have family here, and visiting a friend’s bedroom is like visiting a family member. Because of the transitory and unpredictable nature of our lives, we often try to keep the bedrooms simple but with a slight personal touch. Even though we treat our bedrooms as a temporary stay, it is still a haven to us where we feel the most comfortable and where interesting talks happen. My friends and I have had so many talks here that can not exist elsewhere. Our minds float and our feelings decorate the space.

Why Digitally?

Digital spaces can surpass the limitations of geographical locations. I have planted the flowers digitally so my friends can take care of them anywhere, anytime, and in any way. I want this project to be a “site of memory” for my friends. I hope that in ten years, they can look back at the $1000 bedroom they rented with roommates in New York and revisit the memories, conversations, and feelings they had at that time. I aim to create a small corner on the internet, where each space can become a small monument to the public, memorializing our words, spaces, and existence.

Situation in the United States

The situation is not any better in the United States for people from China. The U.S. is not the “utopia” many have dreamt of. Our voices as Chinese immigrants are often ignored, ostracized, and misunderstood by society. Many of us find ourselves in a constant state of losing our voice. A lot of people develop the habit of self-censorship just to protect themselves and stay in a seemingly harmonious bubble. Our words appear as banal and powerless as the blank walls in our bedrooms. In any city, there are millions of such walls, and no one cares to pay attention.

This situation has worsened with the current tension between the U.S. and China, with thousands of students' visas being terminated.

Why Flowers?

Giving out flowers is my love language. Flowers are like words. They have meanings behind them, they express emotions, and together they become poetry. Appreciation for the beauty of flowers is universal, and can reach beyond languages, cultures and political opinions that seem to divide us further and further. Moreover, they are poems that are hard to censor. I want to have this work visible on the Chinese internet, so I need to find a way to document the essence of our conversations without being censored. There is one famous line in a Chinese poem translated to “the wind doesn't know how to read, so why will it flip the book?” If people are not allowed to express their true self through words, then let nature do the job. It will become a mockery in history if any government even doubts and tries to censor nature, and they will face their consequences.

Design Details

Five Elements in I Ching

I Ching, also known as the Book of Changes, is a classic divination text from ancient China, dating back to the 9th century BCE. Bazi is an astrological system that grew out of this text and has been practiced for hundreds of years as a way to reflect on one's personality and predict future fortune. According to I Ching, there are five main elements—Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth—that together make up all substances in nature. Each element contains two sides: one representing Yin (feminine energy) and the other Yang (masculine energy).

Bazi, directly translated as “eight letters,” refers to the eight characters a person inherits at birth, with each character representing an element. These eight characters are a blend of different elements—some Yin, some Yang—and together form a person’s innate personality and fate. Among the eight, one character directly represents the individual. I use this character as the main source of inspiration when setting the tone for each participant’s room.

The reason I chose to include I Ching and Bazi in this project—aside from being an avid practitioner—is that, despite being foundational to ancient Chinese cosmology, topics related to I Ching and Bazi are heavily censored on Chinese social media. Accounts are often blocked or deleted when posting related content. While part of this is aimed at preventing scams, the broad and uncritical censorship also reveals the government's disregard for spirituality. This pushes me to reclaim this part of my culture. By simply including it, I am making a quiet gesture against ongoing censorship. Ancient Chinese spiritual knowledge and ritual practice should never be dismissed as a “scam.”

Decorations

Beyond the flowers, each room is decorated based on both the interviews and my personal memories with each friend. First, I included 3D scans of the objects they chose during our interviews. Then, I designed the space further using their favorite works as inspiration.

For example, I included Z’s favorite quote from Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit. For L, the word “Te Quiero”—which she thinks about a lot while learning Spanish—appears in the space. She’s drawn to it because it means “I love you,” yet can also be said between friends. “哪吒在此” (translated as “Ne Zha is here”) is a piece of graffiti from J’s favorite film Rebels of the Neon God by Tsai Ming-liang. For Y, who watches a lot of TV, I placed glowing text on the screen—“Only Connect” from The Inheritance by Matthew López, and “I Still Believe” from the song Man of the House by Rachel Zegler.

Finally, I added some personal touches. For instance, Z has a deep interest in chains and has built installations using them as a primary material—so chains are woven into their room. J loves anything with falling water, so I created a mini waterfall in their space.

Flowers Choices, Arrangements, and Textures

During the interviews, I asked my friends questions like what their favorite flowers are and whether they’ve ever received flowers from someone—on what occasion, and how it made them feel. My flower selections for each participant are mostly based on these conversations.

For Z, their name is derived from Hyacinth and Jacobinia, which are also their mother’s favorite flowers. So, these two flowers form the core of their space. Z once showed me a photo of a flower they found beautiful at first sight. They said it reminded them of themselves—often used as a complementary flower rather than the centerpiece, yet possessing a unique charm and character. After some research, I discovered that flower was wild eryngium.

Although Z often refers to themselves as a wallflower, someone who avoids the spotlight, I see them differently. In my eyes, Z shines in their own way. Like their I Ching element—Yin Fire—they are akin to candlelight. Candlelight may not compete with the sun, which represents Yang Fire, but it has irreplaceable qualities. In darkness, a candle lights the room, offers warmth, and symbolizes quiet epiphany. To express this, I retextured the flowers in Z’s space with fluorescent and emissive colors.

Another example is L. During our interview, they told me about a unique red crop they saw during a trip to Peru. They had no idea what it was or where exactly the photo was taken. At first, I thought about simply using a generic crop and coloring it red. But I decided to dig deeper—researching the latitude, seasonal cycles, and origins of crops in that region. Eventually, I identified it as Calamagrostis, a plant that turns red under stress, especially in March in high-altitude areas like the Andes.

Hidden Cues on Censorship

This is a project about censorship—but instead of confronting it directly, I embed subtle messages, inviting viewers to dig deeper and make their own discoveries. In Z’s room, the number 1818 references Wong Kar Wai’s Fallen Angels. It reflects Z’s layered identity—having moved from outside mainland China during her teenage years—and her conflicted feelings about the current tensions between mainland China and Taiwan/Hong Kong.

Similar cues appear in J’s room. A cross quietly reveals their identity as a baptized Catholic, despite the fact that much religious content is banned in China. On L’s wall, the Yi Yi poster—a film by Taiwanese director Edward Yang—is written in Korean rather than Chinese, a quiet commentary on cultural displacement. And on Y’s wall, the Dorian Gray playbill…

Technical Details

3D Scans

The 3D scanning process involved two parts: first, capturing LiDAR scans of my friends’ bedrooms; second, scanning the objects they selected from their rooms. On average, it took three attempts to produce a usable scan of each space. For most objects, I placed them against a white background to achieve a full 360-degree scan. However, for some, I intentionally left parts smudged or fragmented. This was my way of reminding viewers that what they see in this digital space once had a more complete, tangible existence in real life.

Constructing the Spaces with Unreal Engine

I imported the 3D scans of my friends’ bedrooms into Unreal Engine, a game engine used for creating realistic 3D environments. Most of the building and texturing work was done within Unreal, while I occasionally used Maya and Blender for additional 3D modeling.