To this day, the spectures of Wuhan still hovers in my mind.
I have found many documents and photographs of the last century in Wuhan. These documents and photographs point to a time and space that I do not know. These negatives were lost by their owners, the carriers of these memories lost in the remains of memory. I try to peel back these dusty memories, they are interconnected with my feelings about Wuhan, and I long to find some forgotten pieces at the edge of some of this stolen film.
These old negatives are fragile, and the images on top of them are extremely fragile, the equivalent of a long flight of memory, which is bound to break, but is extremely beautiful before it does. Like an archaeologist I go about salvaging these images, peeling it back, cleaning it up, separating it, perhaps they will fade away in the next moment, perhaps they can belong to a phantom of the past. These images don't need any embellishment, they are beautiful in their own right and are like ghostly apparitions in my mind. I went to work in earnest to strip out these ghostly images, scrubbing these films with their images over and over again until the films returned to their original appearance - clear filmstrips, with everything that had once been left behind fading away, the images under the sides present, and the ghosts left behind on the photographic paper. I then mix these pieces of film with the preservative solution, and after a certain percentage of mixing, they leave only unique traces on the photographic paper.
While collecting negatives, I also collected a lot of letters about Wuhan. In this sale, I found love stories up to 13 letters long, and I imagined this love through one-sided letters. These words were collected as I reorganized the images in my mind and found some resonance of the images for and with the words. I tried to extract lines from the single letters, reordering them to form some first love poems. Inside these poems, I gradually overlap and separate from people from my past until I can't tell the real from the fake, and the words I can read under the tail.
In the process, the real and the fictional mingle past, and I engage in a collaboration with the past that spans their time and space, and the words become an assemblage that cannot be seriously recognized. In the darkroom I found phrases in my transcription and wrote them over and over again on photographic paper, the washed out images faded away but they made up new words. In the process I tried to peel back these dusty memories and renewed my emotional connection to Wuhan. I wanted to have a chance to freeze this fragile moment in time, and the repetition of writing is a process of getting closer and closer to that fictionalized time and space. Close your eyes and imagine those moments and phrases, and complete the writing in the process. I hope to freeze this fragile moment once, the repetition of writing is a process of getting closer and closer to the fictional space and time, until it is impossible to separate the “you” from the “I”.
In this work, I hope to revisit the importance of “grand narratives” to the will of the individual in society. I would like to emphasize that “even an ordinary person has his own strong emotions and warning points that cannot be ignored.” Questions about the relationship between the “individual” and the “collective”. How do we recognize and respond to this in the context of a grand narrative? And how do we balance the “individual” with the “collective”?
我在武汉找到了很多关于上个世纪的文件和照片。这些文件和照片都指向了一个我所不知道的时间与空间。这些底片被他们的主人所遗失，这些记忆的载体遗失在了记忆之中。我尝试去剥开这些尘封的记忆，他们与我对于武汉的感情相互连接，我渴望在这些破损的胶片中找到一些在遗忘边缘的记忆。
这些老旧的底片是脆弱的，附着在其之上的影像也是极其脆弱的，像是飞行了很久的泡泡，它必定会破碎，但是在破碎之前是极其美好的。我像一位考古学家一样去抢救这些影像，剥开它，清理它，分离它，或许他们会在下一刻消逝，也许他们能成为属于过去的幻影。这些图片不需要任何的修饰，它们本身就很美，并且像幽灵一样萦绕在我心头。我认真的去将这些幽灵般的影像剥离出来，并将这些带有影像的胶片反复搓洗，直到这些胶片回归到最初的样子——透明的菲林片，一切曾经留下的图像都消逝了，只剩下存在的痕迹，以及相纸上留下的幽灵。然后我将这些胶片的碎片和显影液混合，在一定比例的混合后，他们可以在相纸上留下独特的痕迹。
在收集到底片的同时，我也收集到了很多有关于武汉的信件。在此之中，我发现了一个长达13封信的爱情故事，我只能通过单方面的信件去想象这一段恋爱。这些文字随着我所收集到的影像在我的脑海中重组，找到了一些对于图像与文字的共鸣感。我尝试去从单封的信件里提取出一些句子，并将他们重新排序，组成若干首情诗。在这些诗歌里面，我与过去的人逐渐重叠和分离，直到无法分清楚真与假，只剩下唯一能阅读的文字。
在这个过程中，真实与虚构混杂在了一起，我与过去的人进行了一次跨越时空的合作，这些文字成为了一种无法辨认真伪的集合体。随后在暗房中，我将从信件中找到的语句，一遍一遍的写在相纸上，那些被洗掉的影像消逝了，但是他们组成了新的文字。在这个过程中我尝试去剥开这些尘封的记忆，他们促成了我对于武汉的感情连接。我希望一次次去定格这个脆弱的瞬间，重复的书写是一个不断接近的过程，接近那个被虚构的时空。闭上眼睛去想象，那些瞬间和语句，在这个过程中完成书写。我希望一次次去定格这个脆弱的瞬间，重复的书写是一个不断接近的过程，接近那个被虚构的时空，直到无法将“你”与“我”剥离出来。
在这个作品中，我希望可以重新审视“宏大叙事”对于社会中个体意志的忽视。强调“就算是一个再普通不过的人，他也有自身强烈的感情，以及无法被忽略的闪光点。”并对于个人”与“集体”进行发问。当我们处于一个宏大叙事的大背景下，如何去意识到这一点，并及时做出响应？以及如何去平衡“个人”与“集体”之间的关系？
