We Can't Say Love

The emotional expression of Asians always seems implicit. I never heard 'love' from my parents and relatives during my growing up, but they would express their emotions in other ways. For example, my grandpa built a garden for me in my childhood and impressed me, thus I began to set out to trace the beginnings of my memories via architecture.

 

At the beginning of the 20th century, China was in an era of rapid development and transformation, with many old buildings gradually being replaced by new ones. At that time, western style decoration was prevalent in buildings in China, especially European style. The garden that was built by my grandpa comes from imitating European style also, so when I travelled to Europe and visited those gardens, it brings me a familiar feeling. The building is an object that clearly reflects the hierarchy and usually represents power, identity or wealth. From my perspective, hierarchy is one of the factors that hinder people from expressing their emotions, and the constraint of this hierarchy concept also constrains people's desire to express their emotions.

 

After filming buildings in different gardens with different styles in Europe, I recreate the images of these buildings and flowers using lumen print. This installation mimics the state of me sitting on a park lawn. In the first picture, there are show many people sitting in a public grass space, they are family, couple or friends. In the other picture is a garden that I have collaged from memories. People who watch are placed in the middle of the circle and view the images in an immersive manner. Lenticular images allow the image to constantly change in front of the viewer, presenting a visual effect of overlapping private memories and public spaces.