- Hiding and Seeking
- Invisible Thresholds of A Home
- Yan Wenjiang
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Settled into the mountain for eternity
- Commission
Information
CV
Every time I visit my grandmother, she repeats to me some of the spiritual experiences she has had. It has always as if she wants to find an answer about these experiences after telling them to me, even though it doesn’t seem deliberate.
Through her constant retelling, these stories and beliefs have gradually become a part of how I perceive and understand
the world. Even a lot of times, when I visit temples and meet with priests and masters, I share her experiences with them. hoping to uncover the answers my grandmother seeks. The search for answers and storytelling are not limited to what my grandmother tells me; they have became a part of me as well. Now, as I blend the scenes she describes in her narratives, her descriptions, my own experiences, and my cognition, I employ my accustomed method of thinking through imagery, searching for insights. This process allows me to reimagine the potential experiences my grandmother held in my heart.
Presented in the form of a photobook, I leverage the inherent visual communication attributes of this format, the intimacy
of audience viewing, and the continuity of image-to-image relationships facilitated by picture editing. For instance, when the healer and the visitor establish a connection through en- ergy-transmitting hand gestures. In the book, I use the same gestures, directing the side facing the ‘visitor’ towards the audience. This project includes images I have created alongside transcriptions of recordings in which my grandmother recount- ing her experiences. Through this project, I invite the viewer to join me in the search for answers to these spiritual questions, and to explore these experiences through the medium of pho- tography. These spiritual experiences and the feelings brought by spiritual experiences continue to be transmitted by the me- dium of photography books, and questions the audience again.