Emilie Appercé

Commissioned by the Aurua Arts Foundation and co-curated with Liaohui Guo, Fire Pit Tower Celebration is a collective exhibition conceived as a cultural and architectural platform to construct the evolving mythology of the Fire Pit Tower at the Yangshuo Sugar House in Guilin.

The exhibition opened on 1 December 2023 at Yangshuo Sugar House. Once a sugar factory on the Li River—now transformed into a hotel—the site hosts the annual Silvester Fire Pit Tower. Rebuilt each year by a commissioned architect, the tower is ignited at midnight as visitors celebrate the Western New Year amid the surrounding karst peaks. 

The exhibition operates as a process for configuring the myth of the Fire Pit Tower. It extends the annual ritual into a narrative form structured in four acts. Act I invites architects, artists, and hotel residents to contribute personal or fictional stories of fire-centered celebrations—both local and global. Through annotations, images, and film fragments, the exhibition assembles a repertoire of memories and myths. Act II presents the stories within an architectured space composed of six cardboard columns arranged in a hexagon around a central column, inspired by a local fire tower typology. Act III (implicit in the spatial and narrative development) deepens the collective construction of myth through shared presence and storytelling. Act IV culminates in transformation: the exhibition’s paper screens are reshaped and ultimately set alight during a scripted ceremony.

Contributors, architects, artists, and collaborators include:

Adam Jasper, researcher, Hong Kong

ALIAS (Lorenza Donati, Antoine Berchier), architects, Zurich

Barbara Signer, artist, Zurich

Constança Girbal Eiras, architect, Bahrain

Ezgi Tok, artist, Istanbul

Gregory Tsantilas & Angeliki Papavasileion, architects, Zurich

Helen Thomas, architect, writer, publisher, Ennenda

Iris Lacoudre, architect, writer, Paris

Jonas Løland, architect, Olso

Logan Amont, architect, Basel

Mantha Tsialiou, artist, Thessaloniki

Marina Montresor, architect, Zurich

Matthew Phillips, architect, Zurich

Mitsunori Sano, architect, Beijing

Natalia Petkova, architect, Paris

Sam Porritt, artist, Zurich

Sauter von Moos, architects, Miami

Scarlet Ziwei Song, former hotel resident, Shanghai

Tuukka Laurila, artist, curator, Paris

Violeta Burckhardt, architect, urban designer, Berlin