Chan, who was the first Chinese artist to participate in the Antiques Biennale, recently explained the symbolic meaning of cicadas in Chinese mythology during a preview of some of the exhibits in Amanyangyun Shanghai, a luxury resort and hotel in the city's suburban Minhang district.

"These insects spend a couple of years underground before climbing along the tree trunk to go through metamorphosis overnight, spreading their wings to become singing creatures in summertime," he says.

Ancient Chinese took cicadas as a symbol of nirvana, he says, adding that since the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), people have carved forms of the insect with beautiful stones.

Cicada pendants symbolized nobility and unsullied virtue, and jade cicadas were put in the mouth of the deceased before they were buried, a move that symbolized rebirth and immorality, he adds.