Commissioned by LEAP (CHN)
“The cause (which must last)”… “The third meaning arrives without notice”… “…”… “Inside the interior that was crushed and shattered, there was a crumpled movie ticket”… “The West Sea becomes a true ocean and floods everything”
What lies south-east to my home is Xihai, the West Sea (why is a lake to the South East called a sea on the West?). On that weekend, the entire Xicheng and Dongcheng districts of Beijing rolled out all-member testings for COVID. Along the South bank of Xihai, streets were covered with make-shift testing signs made of paper. In the evening I followed the arrows of direction, trying to find a testing site, only to arrive at water. Maybe the healthcare workers had already got off work, or maybe they had never been there. I returned to the Hutong where I came in, time had come up. Opposite to the A4 sized papers on which neighborhood names were written, there’s another wall, on which another piece of paper was pasted: “In the evening of October 2nd, 2020, a black Volkswagen Magotan was keyed by an unidentified man…” No car, no scratches, no unidentified man, no testing sites, every unfinished business from 2020 is no where to be found, yet none of them has disappeared. They persist as public notices, signs, pieces of paper, so lightly stuck on the wall. Right outside of my home, where the walk started, a row of walls just crumbled. I know what was gone, but have no idea of what to come. Opposite to the wall there is wall, behind the wall there is sea. Everyday I am capable of leaving my home and go to places, yet always circle back at home, circles right outside of my home — another form of being stuck, I am stuck in guesses that lead to nowhere: within the space circumscribed by the 20 and a half minutes, a few secret connections follow a few signs, moving forward, flipping around, circling back, one step after another.
“The cause (which must last)”… “The third meaning arrives without notice”… “…”… “Inside the interior that was crushed and shattered, there was a crumpled movie ticket”… “The West Sea becomes a true ocean and floods everything”
What lies south-east to my home is Xihai, the West Sea (why is a lake to the South East called a sea on the West?). On that weekend, the entire Xicheng and Dongcheng districts of Beijing rolled out all-member testings for COVID. Along the South bank of Xihai, streets were covered with make-shift testing signs made of paper. In the evening I followed the arrows of direction, trying to find a testing site, only to arrive at water. Maybe the healthcare workers had already got off work, or maybe they had never been there. I returned to the Hutong where I came in, time had come up. Opposite to the A4 sized papers on which neighborhood names were written, there’s another wall, on which another piece of paper was pasted: “In the evening of October 2nd, 2020, a black Volkswagen Magotan was keyed by an unidentified man…” No car, no scratches, no unidentified man, no testing sites, every unfinished business from 2020 is no where to be found, yet none of them has disappeared. They persist as public notices, signs, pieces of paper, so lightly stuck on the wall. Right outside of my home, where the walk started, a row of walls just crumbled. I know what was gone, but have no idea of what to come. Opposite to the wall there is wall, behind the wall there is sea. Everyday I am capable of leaving my home and go to places, yet always circle back at home, circles right outside of my home — another form of being stuck, I am stuck in guesses that lead to nowhere: within the space circumscribed by the 20 and a half minutes, a few secret connections follow a few signs, moving forward, flipping around, circling back, one step after another.
four months later, 2021/06