David Diao’s Plot Plan is part of a cycle of works entitled Da Hen Li. Created between 2007 and 2008, the series unearths Diao’s memories of the Da Hen Li house, his childhood home in Chengdu, China. Diao lived at Da Hen Li until the age of six, when he emigrated to Hong Kong, shortly before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Thirty years later, upon returning to his home town for the first time, Diao discovered that his former family residence had recently been razed to the ground, leaving almost no record of its existence. Comprising paintings of various sizes and media, including hand-drawn and ruled floor plans, silk-screened property deeds, laser-printed sketches, and texts in English and Chinese, the cycle is the artist’s attempt to trace his childhood through a personal recollection of Da Hen Li’s spaces.
In Plot Plan, a diagram of Da Hen Li’s plot of land is silk-screened on a light-brown background, reminiscent of brown kraft paper. In the drawing, there are no details of the building; only the outline of the land plot is shown. It contrasts with other works in the cycle, which are focused on reconstructing the interior spaces.