In February 2025, artist Yexin Yang assembled thousands of speechless masks into suspended “Silent Planets,” installing them amidst a landscape of mask debris. When masks—once a tool of collective empathy (“silence for others”)—morph into a normalized act of self-silencing, the installation confronts modern society with its gravitational weight: If individual voices continue to implode into mute celestial bodies, do we still inhabit a shared spiritual cosmos?
