The work Turf (2021) reflects Tan Mu’s origin story in many ways. The seated young man depicted in the painting is her father, a professional soccer player in the 1980s who chose to retire upon the artist’s birth. A photograph of him was featured in sports news, serving as a tangible record of an unwitnessed past—a “family photo” that exists outside personal memory and even beyond the family album. In response, Mu sought to document this memory through painting. Turf also explores the positioning of the self within the universe, the intersection of heritage and future, familial lineage, and the trajectory of technoscientific progress.