HERE, NOHWERE (2022-2024)
--Five Faces, Five Poems,Five Trajectories in integration
26, 00''
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As a Chinese photographer and artist, at 2018, I immigrated with my family from Shanghai to canton Aargau, Switzerland. As part of the immigrant community, I am also an experiencer of immigrant life and an observer of this process. Since the spring of 2022, i have invited five immigrant women around her to read poems in their mother tongue to show the hardships and joys of their new life. I use real and delicate film language to show the audience the private states of mind of these women from different cultural backgrounds, hoping that these ordinary individuals can gain the audience's understanding and respect.
This immigration journey, whether bitter or joyful, is an experience worth remembering. Where will these immigrant women go and will they be able to put down roots in this country? Will this be their last stop?
Hopefully, one day their hearts will be firmer and more peaceful, and this place, here, will no longer be a foreign country.
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AGING IN TEN MINUTES (2023)
10, 00''
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In the countless seconds you fell asleep
that we didn't interact
It's just me
Looking at you quietly for a moment
Clock ticking
By this way
You are growing up every minute
That's how I also grow old every minute
Thank you
My dearest Anna
LONGCHANG APARTMENT (2014)
9,21''
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The black-and-white short film was created for an exhibition and charity auction to collect money for children of migrant workers in Shanghai who need eye disease treatment. Jazz musician Jasmine Chen plays and improvises on the piano. During the opening ceremony of the exhibition, the film was accompanied by live piano performance.
Inspired by the unique architectural structure of Longchang Apartment in Yangpu District in Shanghai and the lifestyle of its neighbors, the photographer tries to capture the beauty of the old days with delicate and sensitive life details.
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Building Number 362 Longchang Road in Yangpu district, Shanghai, is called Longchang Apartment. Longchang Apartment was built in the 1920’ and was designed by a British architect. Before liberation (the forming of PRC), it was the police station of Shanghai. After the liberation it became the family compound for the Yangpu Branch of the Public Security Bureau.
This apartment complex is a Roman coliseum-looking square-shaped compound with 5 story buildings surrounding a spacious courtyard in the middle. It used to house over 250 families. Each story of the building has a long public corridor, behind the corridor are various sized dwellings. Many residents also built rooms in the hallways. Every evening the compound becomes very lively. Everyone in the building can hear if you talk loudly. All the household chores like doing laundry, washing vegetables, cooking dinner etc. are moved out to be done in the corridors. The sound of kids crying, people arguing and laughter fill the air and pots and pans fill up the compound.
In 2004, it was registered as an immovable cultural (historic) relic.
FEET STORY (2012)
11,26''
This short video is a tribute to resilience and quiet strength.
Through the hazy image of a dancer’s legs and the voice of a narrator, it traces the life of Kate, a 61-year-old single mother from South Africa. Once a dancer who traveled the world, she later gave up her dream in order to survive and to raise her child. Against medical expectations, she cared for and brought up a seriously ill child whom doctors had nearly given up on.
Kate was once my Airbnb guest—a brief encounter in my life—but her story left me with a lasting sense of strength. This work is dedicated to those whose dreams change, yet whose courage endures.
TAIJI SHANGHAI (2010)
5,00''
In a city defined by speed and constant transformation, a foreign young man practices Tai Chi in the everyday spaces of Shanghai — like tourist landmarks, crowded markets, and abandoned demolition sites……
While the metropolis rushes forward, his movements remain slow and contained, creating a quiet pause within the urban flow. The contrast reveals a city shedding layers of tradition while rapidly constructing a new present.
Tai Chi appears here not as spectacle, but as a state of being — a gentle persistence of slowness, presence, and embodied memory within a city relentlessly shaped by time and progress.