The Epoch Of Rippling Hengduan Mountains 


- I am supposed to tell you some of the words I heard deep down in the sea

The exhibition continues the artist's "image-scanning" work on mountains since 2018, focusing on The Hengduan Mountains in Southwest China.

From rocks and minerals to tools and technology, we have expanded the grand picture of the current world by digging down into the earth after a long period of evolution. Metals and mining industry are irreplaceable in the long history of mankind. When casting the internal world of capital, from the surface of the sphere to the interior of the sphere, "mines" also draws a panoramic view of human beings’ madness system. The mining industry in the inaccessible mountains of Southwest China is essentially a game of exchanging time between people and the earth. In the artist's works, mines, tunnel and ores exist as metaphorical representations, with the intention of discussing the modernity experience, geological time and ecology hidden under the image, as well as the madness system. Through various medias such as video and photography, the artist has been trying to gather heterogeneous things and re-measure those faults, cracks and contingencies, and to draw atlas for the areas before they are named, so as to open a virtual geological age.

此次展览延续艺术家自2018年以来对于山系的“影像扫描”工作，将目光聚焦中国西南部的横断山脉。

从岩石、矿物到工具与技术，经由漫长的时间流变，我们从地底深处拓展出当前世界的宏大图景。金属与采矿在人类悠久的历史中无可替代，在铸造资本的内部世界时，从球体表面到球体内部，“矿”同样绘制了一幅人类的迷狂体系全景图。存于人迹罕至的西南山地采矿业，本质上是人与大地交换时间的游戏，在艺术家的作品中，矿山、矿洞、矿石作为隐喻的表征而存在，意图讨论隐藏在图像之下的现代性体验、地质时间与生态，以及迷狂体系。通过影像等多种媒介，将异质性的事物聚拢，对那些断层、裂缝和偶然性重新做一次测量，也为被命名之前的地域绘制图像，由此开启一个虚拟的地质年代。














我在说从深海听来的几个词
I am supposed to tell you some of the words I heard deep down in the sea
2022


正如娜恩·谢泼德在《活山》里所形容的，“与某个地方建立长久联系的真正标志是：时刻准备好面对不确定性，并接受无法获得全部知识的现实。”早已忘了，当初重回西南横断山地的缘由，在“虚空建塔”的创作阶段后，关于世界尺度的遥远/切近、已知/未知，以另一种纵深推进的视野重新开放。因此在必须亲历的经验中，开始摸索联结地方感的力量，于是群山开始显得是自己有故事要讲了。

山川河流，人们所眷恋的不一定是事物的显性之处。在可见又无法想象的自然中，一眼望尽的山地，只不过是现实的单薄影像。无论是冰川的“前世今生”，还是山峰的“崇高碎片”，那些秘密是关于庞大尺度的永恒运动中，已流动千万年，内在与古老的生命力量。自太初时期，孕育于海洋的“矿脉”像是内蕴的线索，牵引出失落时间、以及自然与大地的谜团。中西部作为线性历史中的“资源区”，我以此地域的矿山与开采遗迹作为切口，在山脉的时空堆叠与土地关系中展开工作，从过去的采矿业到如今的山地生态，尝试通过更旷阔的叙事对西部山地进行“影像扫描”。

作为原始方舟，静止不动的大地会泛起涟漪吗？在求索的路途中携着这样的疑问，决心把存于遥远时空中，一些支离破碎的知识引到这里，并确信和追随着某种踪迹。在这片重新照见的地域，以古老的知识和消逝的语言，发明未来；也将此献与那些晦暗、深邃、不明的时间，消逝或将要消逝之物。

最后，让我们心照不宣地走向荒野，无论会在何处相遇。


*「我在说从深海听来的几个词」源于Paul Celan为Edgar Jené所写的文本：“I am supposed to tell you some of the words I heard deep down in the sea where there is so much silence and so much happens.”（我在说从深海听到的几个词，那里如此沉默，但又有很多事情发生。）

As Nan Shepard described in “ The Living Mountain”, "the real sign of a long-term connection with a territory is to be ready to face uncertainty and accept the fact that you can't get all knowledge." I have long forgotten the reason for returning to Hengduan Mountains in the southwest of China. After the stage of "building towers in the void", the distant / nearby, known / unknown world scale is reopened with another kind of in-depth promotion. Therefore, in the experience that I must experience, I began to explore the power of connecting the sense of locality, so the mountains began to appear that they had a story of themselves’ to tell.

No matter they are mountains or rivers, what people cherish are not necessarily the dominance of things. In the visible and unimaginable nature, the mountains at a glance are just a thin image of reality. Whether it is the "past and present lives" of glaciers or the "sublime fragments" of mountains, those secrets are about the internal and ancient life force that has been flowing for thousands of years in the huge scale of eternal movement. Since the absolute beginning, the "vein" bred in the ocean seems to be an internal clue, leading to the mystery of lost time, nature and the earth. The southwest regions of China are considered as the "resource area" in the linear history, I take the mines and relics of the region as the incision to work in the temporal and spatial stacking of mountains and the land relationship. From the past mining industry to today's mountain ecology, I try "image-scanning" the western mountains through a broader narrative.

As the original ark, will the motionless earth ripple? On the way of exploring, I carry such questions and am determined to lead some fragmented knowledge stored in distant time and space here, and believe in and follow some certain traces. Invent the future with ancient knowledge and disappearing language in this re-illuminated area; Also dedicate it to those dark, deep and unknown time, things that have disappeared or are about to disappear.

In the end, let's go to the wilderness tacitly, no matter where we meet.


*It is quoted from a text written by Paul Celan for Edgar Jené: “I am supposed to tell you some of the words I heard deep down in the sea where there is so much silence and so much happens.”


Text /陈萧伊 Chen Xiaoyi














Exhibition Views
千高原艺术空间，成都，2022
A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu, 2022