- Hiding and Seeking
- Invisible Thresholds of A Home
- Yan Wenjiang
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Settled into the mountain for eternity
- Commission
Information
CV
In feudal China, rooted in the rule of elders' power, the ver- nacular social order formed an ethnographic indoctrination between kin, combined communities, and a patriarchal-dom- inated clan structure. This brought bondage and suppression to the people of the time, especially women.
Yan Wenjiang is a local god born in Boshan (Zibo, Shan Dong Province) during the Northern Qi era. Her myth is about an ordinary local woman who rose to become a Taoist deity after carrying the trials and tribulations brought by the clan system and eventually gained her freedom.
Whereas in the 1990s Zibo as a former industrial city challenged the traditions of agrarian civilization, today the changing orientation of the city has forced the relationship between the people and the gods surviving in the land to face challenges. And I, as a local who grew up under the influence of the local Taoist system, felt her divine power fading with the changes. In the text of Yan Wen Jiang's primitive mytholo- gy, the spiritual core of the pursuit and yearning for freedom is perhaps a dimension that we have never thought about in the framework of our understanding of filial piety. In the primitive mythological texts, it is the natural elements related to the local people's life experience, such as spring, wind, etc., that help Yan Wenjiang to finally achieve freedom.
Therefore, I try to use the medium of photography to bring these natural elements back to the everyday, to connect the relationship between humans and gods, to construct miracu- lous manifestations, and to seek the freedom of divine power.