projects |
Sustainable Imagination | ¿É³ÖÐø»ÃÏë Zheng Yunhan Vs Li Zhenhua Interview Interviewer: Li Zhenhua Editor: Jiang Di Li: When did you start to engage in contemporary arts? Zheng: My first contemporary artwork was the short video ¡°Sing With Me¡± made in 2003. Even before that, while I was studying at the Fine Art¡¯s Preparatory school, I really liked contemporary arts. After graduation, I got to know a lot people in the field, and also had some relevant experiences. All these people and experiences are completely different from what I had learned about fine art in school, especially in the use of materials and the visual language. To me, contemporary art has a magnetic power because it overthrows the many established norms. Li: Is there any connection between your two short video works ¡°Sing With Me¡± and ¡°The Jixi Coal Miners Investigation?¡± Zheng: To some extent, ¡°Sing With Me¡± can be taken as temporary link with my childhood experience. It¡¯s more or less a stimulant to me. ¡°The Jixi Coal Miners Investigation¡± is, in many aspects and to some extent, a continuation of ¡°Sing With Me.¡± ¡°Sing With Me¡± is more personal in that it employs subjective expression, while ¡°Jixi¡± provides more comprehensive information about real life. The whole video is based on a framework composed of real facts about time, geographic information and with a strong sense of social responsibility. In creating and presenting the video, the subjective influences such as the artistic medium are minimized wherever possible. Li: What kind of influences are you referring to? Zheng: I mean the influence of the artistic training I received in the past. With my previous education, inevitably I become accustomed to many established norms and ways of thinking. Even thought I try so hard to resist their influence, they sill exist in my sub-consciousness. For instance, whenever I picked up my camera, I would find myself looking for the most sensational image. If I see a very interesting scene on street, but the light is not good enough to make a satisfactory picture I might wait for hours before I can take a satisfactory one. By doing this, I obtain a very beautiful picture, but the contents of the picture do not reflect the real world. Manipulating these pictures with technical tools might also mislead our observations in a reproduction of the scene. Therefore, in ¡°The Jixi Coal Miners Investigation¡± I tried to minimize all these established norms. Forget about the time factor. Forget about making poses before the camera. What I wanted was to reproduce reality. Of course, I wouldn¡¯t be able to resist my sub-consciousness. I just pick up the camera and shoot, which is different from others. In creating an artwork, many artists emphasize the importance of ideology, which strengthens the inner power of an artwork. However, in my works, the influence of ideology is exactly what I try to avoid and minimize. One¡¯s subjectivity will have powerful impact on an artwork¡¯s creation and its presentation, which will inevitably lead to a distortion of reality. I had no particular intention when I created ¡°The Jixi Coal Miners Investigation,¡± I was even not sure about what form of expression it would take. For me, it could have been anything, a movie, an installation, or a documentary. What I really care about is the event itself: what happened in the past, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future? Li: What perspective is artwork your artwork coming from? Zheng: The perspective problem is a complicated one. I¡¯ve been mulling over the Jixi phenomenon in my mind for a long time. I spent my childhood in Jixi, and as I grew older, my opinion of the same issue has also changed. I myself do not resist the change, or you could say I cannot control this change. To put it simply, the change is a transformation from the subjective to the objective. What I try to achieve now is mere ¡°observation.¡± I believe observing is from the perspective of recording or to restore reality. Li: How do you look at the industrialization of the mineworker and the mining community? Zheng: The process of industrialization is already over. The process from coal¡¯s first discovery to coal mining is that of the process of coalmine industrialization. Of course, the process has its different phases. As early as China¡¯s Warring States Period, minorities have been living in these areas. In the 1960s, coal began to be mined systematically, and residents became miners. As mining technology become more and more advanced, the industrialization of the coal region also changes, from primitive mining in caves, to modern machine mining. Throughout the process, technology and mining conditions changed a lot, while the miners were the only group that did not change much. When mining technology was not as advanced as today, miners¡¯ living conditions were no doubt miserable, in some cases, even inhumane. During the anti-Japanese war, Jixi was occupied by Japan. The mining methods back then was half-manpower and half machine power. When there was a fire damp explosion, the miners would not be rescued, but buried underground. To put it simply, in the event of a fire damp explosion, the explosion would cause other materials to ignite and the temperature in the mine was very high. (For instance, there are many wood-made pillars and a railway system for carrying the coal through the mines.) When there is a fire damp explosion, many rails became molten metal under the extremely high temperature. During the Japanese occupation, the Japanese would seal the mine entrance during any explosion, so that the fire would extinguish itself when the oxygen ran out. This inhumane mining approach is a portrait of the tragic life of the miners. Even today, the fatality rate among mine workers remains very high, even after all the economic development and advances in civilization. I still remember one day when I was a child, one day I saw the minefield full of rescue crews on my way to school, just in front of our home, there were many firefighters and emergency vehicles. I was just a child, all the rescue crew wore some astronaut-like orange clothes and carried bizarre equipment, it was something different, but the grown-ups all looked serous, and there were sirens everywhere. When I got to school, there were few students and I thought my classmates had skipped class; I understood later that there was a fire damp explosion in the minefield with many casualties, many whom were families or relatives of my classmates. They all went to the mine entrance to wait for any updates about the accident. In a mining community like ours, most people know each other. With an accident like this (although it is not the accident with the greatest number of casualties), the entire mining community was grieved for a long time. In my memory, during that time even the air smelled sorrowful. While we are enjoying the convenience that electricity has brought us, many miners are sacrificing their lives, and others are taking the risk with very low salary. After a day¡¯s work, their faces are dark, with white teeth and simple and honest smiles on their faces. They don¡¯t like to be photographed, since they think they are ugly. But actually, they are the most respectful at that time. Before industrialization, humans were close to nature in most of their work and life. Human relations were also simpler and more sincere. Human beings do not possess much destructive power toward the nature, while nature has much control over human being. Under such circumstances, harmony between people is a necessity to deal with challenges from rough natural environments. However, after industrialization, human beings are incorporated into the system of industrialization, and became a major factor fueling the process of industrialization. As a result, human being started to pursue materialistic interests, human relations become more and more apathetic and the nature of humanity started to change. Industrialization itself is very aggressive. The process of industrialization is a process of consuming natural resources at an unprecedented rate. Therefore, the natural environment was the most effected. These two hundred some years since the beginning of industrialization mark the period where the natural environment was the most damaged in the entire history of human development. Even Japan, an island country, experienced sand storms from the continent this year. My father told me that when he first came to the mining community, the grass was taller than even the people, and he had to arm himself if he was on a night shift because there were wolves around the area. Now, even a single bird is a rare sight here. Li: What kind of impact do you think the media has had on you? Zheng: It may be possible to invite the viewers to Jixi, or bring the whole of Jixi to Beijing. But can I take the audience to the Jixi ten years ago, or bring Jixi back to Beijing? The special characteristics of the media help me a lot in constructing a timeframe, which enables the artwork to be observed directly and easily. It makes it possible to deliver multi-dimensional information with various factors including time, photos, videos, stories etc. All the factors are incorporated within this single media and develop into a single unit. Further more, adding on the interaction with the viewers, their relationship to the viewer becomes more meaningful. Li: Could you please tell us something about your family? Zheng: My father was born in 1947 in Chengzihe of Jixi. In 1965 he was enrolled into the Coal Mine School run by the Mining Bureau. In 1968, he graduated and worked as a mine technician. In 1969, he was injured and was transferred to study in Jixi¡¯s Medical School. He worked in local hospital until his retirement in 2002. My father is a typical community doctor (in my opinion). He worked in the department of epidemics prevention. It¡¯s my impression that he can¡¯t really treat any particular disease, but it seems that he knows about every kind of disease. Because of his job, I spent a lot time in the hospital. For some time, I was either in school or in the hospital. My classmate always said that I smelled like the hospital. In the hospital where my father worked, I learn a word called ¡°humane rescue.¡± One day, while I was playing with other kids in the hospitals, all the nurses in the hospital rushed outside for something. We followed to see what had happened. At the gate of hospital, there was a truck, typically used to carry coal. Down from the truck, the nurses carried several miners who were covered in blood. I realized something must have happened in the coal mine. Back then there was only one operation room in the hospital, so my father¡¯s office had to be converted into an operation room as well. One doctor, who was always joking around, looked very serious then. He cleared out everything in the office in no time, then tables were brought into and sanitized, and the injured miner was stripped and cleaned. I was peeking in from around the corner, and when I saw the knife cut into the chest of the miner, I thought blood would spurt out as I had seen in movies, but it only came a little from the cut. Then the nurse noticed me and closed the curtain. Later, when I asked my father whether the miner survived, my father said the organs of the miner were all destroyed. It¡¯s just a ¡°humane rescue.¡± Later, four out of the five miners died. For a long time, I thought the term ¡°humane rescue¡± was only for those who were bound to die. My mother was born in 1949 in Liaomao of Jixi. In 1968, she was sent to work in the rural areas and became a political officer in her unit. Using the jargon of the time, you could say her ¡°politically ideology was correct.¡± In 1973, she was enrolled into the Normal School of the Jixi Mining Bureau. After graduation, she worked in a high school as an English teacher until she retired in 1993. It was a bitter time for my mother. For six years, the Jixi Mining Bureau didn¡¯t pay any of their employees¡¯ salary. Even during the Chinese New Year, they just arranged a bag of flour and a bag of sugar as a monthly wage for each family. If you didn¡¯t pick them up, you were no longer entitled to the wage anymore. Back then, my younger brother and I were all in school. My mother had to go out working in other place to support our family and she suffered a lot. For a family which depended purely on wages, it¡¯s unthinkable to spend several years without any stable income. For ten years, my mother worked in various places in Jixi, Jidong, Haerbin and Beijing. Li: How did interpersonal relationships change during this period? How do you perceive these changes? Confronted with the transformation of community relationship and social interactions, how did local people make their own choices? Zheng: I think there were two phases of change. The first was the period of economic reform, and the other was that six-year period when workers didn¡¯t get any wages. The impact of economic reform upon Jixi was far less profound than the coastal area, but its impact on people¡¯s mentality is evident. To me, the impact of the six-year period of no wages was far more profound. I¡¯d say the impact was overwhelming. It completely overthrew the traditional idea of having a stable job and being paid regularly. Many people had to leave to try their luck. In this period, the general living environment was also greatly influenced by a high crime rate. Men resorted to violent crimes, while many women went in for prostitution. Relationships between people became chaotic and disastrous. In the past, whenever we made a good meal, dumplings for instance, we would share some with our neighbors. Our neighbors would do the same for us. If anything happened to a family, nobody would hesitate to help. But if you were to take the same situation today, if anything happened to a family others might take it as something they could make fun of. People have become more and more apathetic towards each other. Many people looked for new life directions out of the deep dissatisfaction or even desperation surrounding their living environment. There were even cases in which the entire family relied on their female members who moved to the South to work as prostitutes. Every time they came back from the South, they would invite friends and relatives to a dinner party. Li: What did the transformative process of your subjective to objective perspective mean to you? Zheng: I spent my entire childhood and my youth in Jixi. When I left Jixi and came to Beijing, I had a completely different perspective. When I went back to Jixi, I could look at it clearly and objectively. But my emotional attachment to Jixi will be always there. Therefore, in the process of creating this artwork, I had multiple identities, as investigator, as artist, as thinker, as photographer, as cameraman, as son, classmate, etc. Sometimes in the process of investigation and creation, the transformation between different identities happens accidentally. Once, when I tried to take a picture of a miner who just got off work, he kept staring at me. I found it interesting and kept on shooting. Suddenly, he called me by my name, and I was totally confused. Then I realized that he was my classmate in elementary school. Of course, I could not continue my work, and we sat there chatting for a long time. After so many years, he already has a family to take care of¡ His face was full of wrinkles and black grime and I couldn¡¯t believe he was my classmate. Li: You talked a lot about your personal experiences, your emotional attachment to Jixi. How do you show these factors in your works? Zheng: In the work, many special motion sensors are installed, which will be triggered by the viewers¡¯ actions. I achieve it through the resulting random control and interaction of multi-dimensional elements. Actually, in presenting my work, even I myself cannot interfere with or control its content. Everything occurs in a random fashion. Li: If it was without structure, how would you describe the experience? Zheng: The messages in the work and its interactivity with the viewers include audio, video, and visual--are all multi-dimensional. During these interactions, all the facts and clues are constantly interfered. The intervention does not come from the viewers or the artist, but from the interaction between the viewers and the artist. The viewers and I, in our specific circumstances, are all creating different reality with our actions. I prefer to perceive and apperceive a multiple reality. The fragments of reality, the perspectives and distances, and the constantly restored scenes are just a reproduction of our memories, recollections or even a sporadic fantasy. Li: Do you think what your work presents is merely regional? Is there any limit to that? Zheng: Jixi might just be a tiny place not worth mentioning. It is located in a remote mountain area, or simply where coal is mined. It might just be a small place that does not deserve any special attention, but you cannot deny that many real things happened there. The experience of Jixi is typical of many places, even though it is a small town that could be easily neglected in a huge country like China. In Jixi, fossils of mammoths from the glacial period were found, and remnants of human activity can be traced back to thousands of years ago. Even in modern times, many important battles were fought in Jixi¡¯s ¡°Tiger Head Fort¡± including the Qing Dynasty¡¯s struggles against the Russian army, the fight of the Northeastern United Anti-Japanese Forces against the Japanese invaders, land reform, and even the last battle of World War II happened there. It seems that so much that transpired here in Jixi is connected to the outside world. Of course, Jixi has its own characteristic climate, geography and natural environment. Before the Cultural Revolution, the exploitation of Beidahuang (the northern frontier) was a huge event. One of the key areas of Beidahuang is Jixi¡¯s Mishan Mountain. Many people know about Beidahuang, but only those who have experienced it know what ¡°Beidahuang¡± really means. What happened in the past still has a great impact on our life today. What is happening to those and what is about to happen? All these questions can help us to really understand ourselves. If we only start to look for them when we really need them, we may find them disappeared. My mother is a retired teacher from a state-owned enterprise. Compared to those who retire from ordinary public schools, their pension is far less. Therefore, 2,000 retired teachers including my mother, tried to appeal to the city government, later to the provincial government and eventually to Beijing. The problem is still left unsolved. I once asked my mother, ¡°Although we are not a rich family, I don¡¯t really need that much. Why bother and get yourself into trouble?¡± My mother said, ¡°What we want is justice. We devoted our entire life to the Revolution. Why can¡¯t they just implement the national policy for us?¡± I once accompanied these teachers in their appeal to Beijing. At the gate of Bureau of Letters and Calls, I witnessed an old man in his 60s being dragged out from the crowd by the police and sent back to where he came from. I almost broke into tears. If that were my mother being dragged out, I¡¯d fight the police to death. Issues like this have gone beyond Jixi. The locations became Jixi, Haerbin and Beijing, and the characters are now teachers, retired teachers, local officials, officials of central government, etc. Behind it are even more factors. What I saw is just an event among other regional events. When all these events come together, the similarity among them create a bigger issue beyond the region. I didn¡¯t intent to emphasize the confrontations in Jixi in particular. To me, Jixi is both too familiar and at the same time too foreign. What is more important is the factor of time. For a big issue like this, a single individual will not have a significant influence. Especially when I incorporate all the historical elements into the work, as an individual, I am like dust in the air. Maybe this is what we call the ¡°locality¡± of a work. It comes from both my familiarity with the place where I grow up and a sense of gradual alienation. Being a son with the experience of appealing to higher authority, taking historical factors into consideration, I find there is a contradiction and it is also a great challenge to observe all these objectively. Li: What the media presents is often already distorted. How would you comment on the distortion of reality during this process? Zheng: Whether the media can deliver the information accurately depends on what the media chooses to present, since it¡¯s impossible for the media to present everything about real life. The transformation process between reality and the media itself is a debate and clarification of one¡¯s value system. We have to learn to make our choice. Before doing that, we must be sure of what we really want to emphasize. To achieve that, we have to make compromises and sacrifice other information. Distortion is relative compared to social reality. I even doubt the existence of the ¡°true fact.¡± As I mentioned above, the truth itself has different meanings, and can be perceived from different angles. We can reach the truth from every angle, at the same time we skip over other facts. We should be cautious about unilateral and simplified understanding of existence, because reality is far more complicated than what we can perceive. What the media may present is only a simplified reality. It seems that anyone can discover a different version of the truth. I think that the intervention of the media is the real distortion. Li: What makes you continue on with these works? Why it is necessary? Zheng: Any artwork has something to do with social function. One¡¯s experiences demand continuality and I want to investigate the structure, function, and norms of a society in social relationships and behavior from the perspective of social science. Through observing the origin, transformation, experiences and social structure of a particular region, I try to explore the relationship between different sectors in society. This investigation involves a series of documentaries and research regarding nationality, social class, gender, family structure, the relationship between individuals and community, historic events as well as the transformation of resident¡¯s economic condition and psychology. The purpose of the whole process is to find out where we come from, and where we are going. The key is to understand what we already know from memory and what we don¡¯t know yet. In other words, this is the Jixi of our memory as well as the real Jixi. It makes it possible to conduct research from both the perspective of social science and individual psychology. Li: In creating the work, how was your identity changed? Zheng: In the process, my memory departed from my experiences. One was in Beijing, and the other is in Jixi. When I went back to Jixi, everything became so natural, since a big part of myself belonged there. I remember that in 2003, when I tried to make a video of the Zhangxin Minefield, I was mistaken for a journalist and was detained by the minefield guards. When the policemen tried to interrogate me, I said I was a local and I told them my father¡¯s name. They soon confirmed my identity and said, ¡°Shoot whatever you want to. We¡¯re both old men from the mine after all.¡± I was really touched by that. Of course, I had had enough of local bureaucrats. But as someone who was born in Jixi, but lives in Beijing, my observation and reflections are always dynamic. Li: What has this work brought to the local social and natural environment? Zheng: As an individual, I can¡¯t do much for them. I am just conducting research and I take it as my job. We live in a complicated system, with lives in different forms existing in different ways. They compete against each other while depending on each other, creating an environment with precise details resulting from a long period of evolution. Everything in evolution follows a certain track, and I am just a singular point during this process. In the next step of my work, I will focus on the local environment, especially the reconstruction and design of local households. Of course, I¡¯m not sure whether I will be able to achieve all of this.
|