This monograph is published to accompany Charwei Tsai's solo exhibition 'Water, Earth and Air' at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, from October to December 2009. Featuring one of Asia's most accomplished young artists, the exhibition blends new installations with video and photographic documentation of Buddhist mantras, poetry and academic texts written on natural objects such as ice, tofu and lotus leaves, which melt, disintegrate, wither and fade. Recently, she has expanded this practice by using mirrors, so that the sky, clouds, sea, sand and earth are captured as reflections on which the mantra reverberates. Her work is a meditation on life and death, on the ephemeral nature of existence and the process of making art. 

Charwei Tsai's work is also included in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT6) at Queensland Art Gallery, held from December 2009 to April 2010. Artist biography and selected bibliography are included in the present catalogue.