Reshaping Reality 感知即现实

March 31, 2021 2021年3月31日

“Perception is reality. If you are perceived to be something, you might as well be it because that’s the truth in people’s minds.” — American football coach Steve Young

Chinese digital artist Kefan Weng is someone who fully buys into this idea. He believes reality is directly correlated with the five senses, noting that people often take what they perceive with their own eyes as absolute truths. “Every individual’s upbringing, life experiences, education, and personalities are all different,” he says. “They all shape an individual’s perception, even if they’re looking at the same things. Reality and truth are just what we choose to believe, and these choices are based on our perceptions.” This viewpoint has driven Weng to take his works into the realm of the surreal.

“感知即现实。如果你认定了某件事，它很可能成真，因为那是你寄存于心的信仰。” 这句话来自美国橄榄球运动员 Steve Young，用来鼓励意志消沉的队友产生对胜利的渴望。

现居德国的中国数字艺术家 Kefan Weng 和 Steve 的观点有些类似，他认为 “现实” 与每个人的感官连通，人们往往只会相信自己看到的事物。他解释说：“每个人的成长环境、阅历、教育、性格都不同，让我们每个人对于相同事物的感知各有千秋。现实和真相不过是我们选择去相信的东西，这些选择都基于我们的感知。” 如此听似唯心主义的观点，与哲学理论中所说的 “现实是客观存在的事物” 背道而驰，但却指导 Kefan 完成了一幅幅超现实主义创作。

Although Weng didn’t know it at the time, elementary school was essential in developing his appetite for art. The illustrations he found in textbooks ignited his creative spark, but maybe not in the way you might think—with a child-like sense of imagination, a bottle of whiteout, and a set of colored pencils, he altered these illustrations to humorous ends. “My classmates got a kick out of those drawings,” he grins. “Though they were simple scribbles, it was fun. These drawings ultimately had an influence on my decision in pursuing art.”

最早对“感知即现实”这句话的体悟或许来自 Kefan 小学时期——《人教版小学语文课本》中的彩绘插图，激发了他最原始强烈的创作欲望。结合孩童时期对图像之外不着边际的想象，凭借一瓶修正液，一套水彩笔，Kefan 记忆中魔改的课本插图数不胜数。他说道：“当时获得了笑声无数，也带给我很多难以忘记的欢乐。这种方式非常简单且直接，一直激励着我的创作。” 倘若课本中的插画算作现实，那么魔改后的插画则是 Kefan 感知后的现实，这为他视觉创作的道路埋下一颗种子。

Now, image manipulation has become Weng’s bread and butter. Photoshop and a camera have replaced the whiteout and colored pencils of his younger years. Within his works now, viewers will encounter an array of convincing oddities: parking lots are filled with nothing but candy-colored Jeeps, elephants stomp through a subway tunnel, and a swimmer diving into a flushing toilet. To the average viewer, these visuals may seem strange and farfetched, but to Weng, it’s just how he perceives reality.

现在，通过幻想来改变画面原本样貌，早已成为 Kefan 一贯的创作方式。在他如今的作品中，山间公路旁的沙县小吃、糖果色的奔驰停车场、地下铁穿行而过的大象……这些脑洞大开的画面大都取材自生活中的场景，却在“感知”的调和下呈现令人咂舌的效果。而与曾经不同的是，相机镜头和电脑软件代替了曾经的修正液和水彩笔。显而易见，在常人眼里，他对于现实的感知是魔幻且虚构的。而在现实之外，则恰恰是 Kefan 的现实。

Weng’s interest in photography began in middle school, and it stems from an unlikely inspiration—the default Windows wallpaper. Once he had his first camera, he began shooting the humdrum of his daily life in China’s Zhejiang Province. He explored every nook and cranny of his hometown, recording its gradual transformation over the years. As the years went by, the area’s narrow lanes and dilapidated factories remained, seemingly stuck in time. They felt so out of place, especially in comparison with how fast the surrounding cities grew. Whenever he came across these sights, his imagination felt invigorated. “These places always made my mind come alive,” he says. “They planted all sorts of surreal stories into my head.”

Aside from his hometown, nearby forests and mountains also became fonts of inspiration. The bristling sounds of leaves caught in the wind and the way sunlight streamed through the treetops are some his fondest memories. The atmospheric light of these woodlands, having clearly left an impression on him, frequently appears in his work.

早年家中 Windows 电脑系统所配备的风景图桌面，让 Kefan 开始迷上图像。初中时期，他获得人生第一台相机，尝试在熟悉的生活中找找灵感。出生并成长在浙江湖州山下的小县城，课余时间，他有机会在不大的城区里探索每一个角落。小城市发展缓慢，一些古旧废弃的厂房和小巷与现代化生活方式格格不入，却总让不经意路过的他驻足凝视，他说：“这些地方总会让我脑子里产生奇异的幻想，想象一些不切实际的故事。”

小城背后的山林也是他经常光顾的地方，叶片摩挲发出的海浪一样的声音，身临其中，非常舒服。童年的这些经历潜移默化地地影响着他的创作。他的作品充满了幻想的线条，同时，柔和的色调和意境又令人身心畅然。

But the more he shot, the more he realized the impracticalities of traditional photography. “A professional photographer needs a bunch of expensive lenses, and they’re often affected by things out of their control,” Weng says. “To construct a scene just as envisioned, the photographer has to invest a lot more time, effort, and money.”

Recognizing these restrictions, he had an epiphany. While studying communication design in Germany, he saw how computer graphics could sidestep these issues and construct entirely new realities. This discovery emboldened him and elevated his work to new creative plateaus.

Weng’s works are cohesive—nothing seems out of place. But at the same time, they’re also masterclasses in juxtaposition, whether it be between colors, scale, or even situations. For example, in one image, a SWAT team bursts through a door only to discover an innocent kitten on the other side. In another, a couple sits in a basin, looking on with nonchalance as a wall of water is seconds away from wiping them out. “I like playing with exaggerated contrasts, which give a certain visual ‘oomph’,” he says.

若想要在作品中创作想象，传统的相机拍摄方式对于 Kefan 来说太过局限性。他说道：“专业摄影需要很多价格高昂的镜头，还会受到很多自然环境等不可抗力因素的影响。如果想要凭空构建一个现实，对创作者的审美把控和前期付出的努力和成本有比较高的要求。” 2019 年，Kefan 在德国攻读传达设计的时候接触了 3D 和 CG 的创作方式。这让他的创作仿佛插上了翅膀，可以在幻想的空间里翱翔，作品也比以往呈现出更加大胆的方向。因此，即便 Kefan 并不认为自己是一名摄影师，描述他为数字艺术家或许更为准确。

他的作品融合很多室内和室外风景，然后融入人物和事物之间的抽象关系，从而使画面成为具有故事性的场景，并不是一味地将一些毫不相干的元素拼凑在一起。你会看到雏菊丛中的男人望向汽车的熊熊烈火、荷花池中站在淹没轿车上的女人、会议现场男女之间摆放的手枪……至于故事的内容，Kefan 则希望用影像建立起框架，剩下的留给观众自行联想。

同时，一些作品通过强烈的对比带来视觉冲击，包括了颜色之间的对比、事物尺寸之间的对比、事物状态的对比。例如《buddha plus+》中巨大佛像和渺小人物的对比、《(no)exit》中破门而入的 SWAT 警员和端坐着的可爱猫咪的对比。他说：“我喜欢事物之间夸张的尺度对比，这能带来最直接的视觉震撼。”

Weng’s Instagram bio consists of four simple words: “Reality is your perception.” He isn’t looking to preach this belief, but his visual expression does capture this viewpoint. “We all exist in this particular moment, but this moment may have seven billion parallel realities branching out,” he says. “Even though we’re living in this age of information, some discount the existence of parallel realities. People are all too obsessed with convincing people to buy into their own belief systems.”

In the future, Weng has hopes of extending his CG work beyond photography and putting it to use in other creative endeavors. He’s also interested in incorporating more elements of Chinese culture into his work: “In my reality, even a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant can carry the infinite possibility of the entire cosmos.”

“感知即现实” 这句话出现在 Kefan 个人 Instagram 账户首页的简介部分。他并不希望以此来教化别人，而是通过海量的视觉语言对广义的现实提供某种可能性。他说：“我们都处于同一个时空，只是这个时空里有着七十亿个平行现实。当代互联网生活的一大矛盾就来自于对于平行现实的不接受不认可，人们总是执着的想去用自己的感知标准来说服和要求他人。”

未来，除了将 CG 渲染的技术运用在摄影领域，Kefan 还希望将更多交互、数字的创作方式融入作品中，也会考虑更多中国元素。他说：“在我的现实中，沙县小吃的征途是星辰大海。”

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Contributor: Pete Zhang

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供稿人: Pete Zhang

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Thailingual 对于说唱，她有不一样的见解

March 29, 2021 2021年3月29日

Rap in Thailand has become very big. It’s big business with big streaming numbers and big personalities. But it’s still young as a culture. There are only so many roads available to success and it’s pretty much a boys’ club. Tsunari wants to help change that. As a mixed-race woman who grew up in different parts of the world and made her name without corporate help, she thinks she’s got a new perspective to offer on rap.

Her music video ”Mula” is immediately clear upon viewing that it’s a banger. But with a Black woman front and center, posing in front of a cold grey city, the whole package isn’t obviously Thai—that is until you realize half of the autotuned lyrics are in fact rapped in Thai. “I call it ‘Thailingual’,” she smiles. “It sounds better than ‘Tinglish’, which is what it’d usually be called.”

说唱音乐是个庞大的产业，这里人才辈出，从不缺少流量和观众。目前，像世界范围内很多地区和国家一样，泰国本土也正在被这股文化旋风席卷。

想要在嘻哈领域取得成功有很多途径。而在这个以男性为主导的说唱世界里，Tsunari 想用自己的努力改变这一观点。混血身份的她，曾混迹于不同国家和地区，在乱战纷争的嘻哈圈子独走龙潭，闯出了自己的一番天地。对于说唱，她有不一样的见解。

第一次观看 Tsunari 的音乐 MV《Mula》，便会令人耳目一新。视频的主角是黑肤色女性，她们与跑车穿梭在灰色的楼宇之间，这样的场景很难让人与泰国联想起来。直到带有泰语歌词的 auto-tune 出现，这才恍然大悟。她笑着说道：“我称之为‘英式泰语’，比平时的泰式英语要更燃一些。”

Listen to select tracks from Tsunari below:

点击即可聆听:

Tsunari’s music and videos all speak to her unusual background. As the child of a Trinidadian dad and a Thai mom, she moved around a lot as a kid. “My dad went to Thailand on vacation where my mom was a tour guide, and they fell in love,” she says. She spent her school days moving between England, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand. “I grew up in Thailand for about 60 percent of my childhood. In Saudi Arabia, I went to an American international school so the curriculum was American, and there were students from all over. In Thailand, I went to a bilingual private school in Korat that was mostly attended by middle-class kids. The city center there was cool but then twenty minutes out it was very rural, lots of rice fields. The difference between my schools was huge.”

Tsunari 的音乐和 MV 都透露出她不同寻常的背景。父亲来自特立尼达，妈妈是泰国人，小时候他们经常搬家。她说：“老爸最早在泰国旅行，我妈那会儿是他的导游，然后俩人就在一起了。”Tsunari 的妈妈曾在英格兰、沙特阿拉伯和泰国都念过书，她随妈妈在这些地方居住。“我童年一半以上的时间都在泰国度过。在沙特阿拉伯的时候，我在一所美国国际学校读书，老师教的是美国课本，班里的同学来自世界各地。在泰国的时候，我读的是一所在呵叻的双语私立学校，同学大多数都来自中产阶级家庭。距离市中心还行，但是二十分钟路程之外就已经是很乡村的地区，有很多稻田。现在回想起来，这两所学校之间真是千差万别。”

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She says school in Thailand as a mixed-race kid was difficult, and she dealt with a lot of bullying: “They saw me as an alien,” she says. “They’d never seen a Black child before. I wouldn’t say they were racist but it was more of a colorist thing. They didn’t understand what they’d never seen before. It was childish bullying, nothing very harmful, just teasing, but it definitely affected my self-confidence.”

Despite feeling like an outsider, Thai music made its mark on Tsunari around this time, and the local music filled her ears everyday on the way to school. “I’m from the suburbs, so we grew up listening to luk thung. My dad loved it too, so I couldn’t avoid it. He even named me after Sunaree Rachasima, a famous Thai country singer,” Tsunari laughs. “I’ve made tracks incorporating these Thai sounds, samples, and instruments and, I hope to do more.”

她提起在泰国上学的经历其实并不容易，自己也曾遭遇霸凌：“他们笑我是外星人，可能因为以前从未见过黑人小孩。我觉得其实他们也不算种族主义者，只是对他们来说，我的肤色很特别。他们不了解自己从未见过的事物。那是小孩子间的欺凌，也没有造成多大的伤害，只是开玩笑，但对我打击也不小。”

尽管在泰国感觉自己像是局外人，但当地音乐依然对 Tsunari 影响很深。每当上学路上，她的耳边总会想起五花八门的当地音乐。“学生时代的我生活在乡下，所以经常会听到 Luk Thung 风格的音乐（Luk Thung 是泰国民谣，通常节奏舒缓，旋律优美，发源于第二次世界大战后）。我爸也超迷这种音乐，我们经常一起听。甚至连我的名字都是由泰国著名的的乡村歌手 Sunaree Rachasima 命名。”Tsunari笑着说，“所以我在创作时会加入了很多泰国元素，例如采样和乐器等等，希望之后可以继续做更多这样的融合。”

After high school, Tsunari moved to London, but while living there, she built a name for herself in Thailand by way of the internet. “London feels like its own country compared to the rest of England, it’s full of people from everywhere,” she says. “There’s also a big Caribbean community here, it’s like a mini-Caribbean. I’ve never been there, so I’m finally learning about this side of my history.”

高中毕业后，Tsunari 搬到伦敦，在那里生活期间，她通过互联网发布自己大量的创作，音乐人生涯就此展开。她说道：“与英格兰其他地区相比，伦敦感觉更像是一个独立的国家。这里文化的包容程度非常高，住着来自世界各地的人，甚至还有一个很大的加勒比海社区坐落在城市的南边，像一个迷你国度。我从未回过非洲，但在伦敦我第一次了解到属于自己根源的文化。”

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“Mula” was Tunari’s first solo hit, dropping last year and reaching a million views within a few short months. But she’d been active in the Thai rap scene a couple of years prior to that. She first caught the ear of Daboyway, an OG of the Thai rap scene, who heard one of her cover songs and decided to reach out for a collaboration. They filmed a music video together in 2018 called “Fire,” a pop-infused dancehall track, building on her Caribbean roots. After that initial splash, she uploaded a music video for her remix of “Doo White,” a popular song by Youngohm, one of Thailand’s most famous rappers. He liked her style enough to cosign it and repost it on his feeds for his fanbase. “That song was kind of a test of whether I wanted to release music in Thailand,” she says. “It happened to blow up, so I was like OK, let’s go, let me do this thing!”

Although most artists who find fame in the Thai rap world rely on television competition shows to reach that level, Tsunari prefers avoiding that route. “I wanted to be a singer-songwriter as a kid and went to so many competitions that I always lost,” she grins. “I’m not interested in doing that anymore.”

《Mula》是 Tunari 的首张个人专辑，自去年发行以来，短短几个月内就获得了 100 万次观看人数。但其实早在前几年，她便是泰国说唱圈子的狠角色。起初，她在互联网上的发行引起了当地说唱界大佬 Daboyway 的注意，二人随后展开一系列合作。在 2018 年两人共同拍摄的音乐 MV《Fire》中，流行舞曲元素搅拌着加勒比海风情和盘托出。紧接着，Tunari 又发行了《Doo White》MV，这次由她自己担任混音和制作，并邀请到了泰国著名说唱歌手 Youngohm 共同演绎。后者也同样非常中意她的风格，甚至一度将她的作品发布在自己的页面上，分享给跟多的乐迷。她说：“那是一次试水，决定我是否要留在泰国做音乐。结果真的火了，随后便决定义无反顾地把创作坚持下去。”

和亚洲大部分地区相似，泰国说唱歌手想要混得像样，则需要借助电视选秀节目，但 Tsunari 不想这样做。“我从小就想成为创作歌手，参加过很多比赛，但每次都会输，我已经对这样的比赛不感兴趣了。”她笑着自嘲道。

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Tsunari hasn’t been able to visit Thailand since the pandemic broke out and has only been able to connect with her fans online. “Thai commenters tend to be very encouraging,” she says. “But of course I get tons of comparisons, probably because I’m Black and I rap. They’re like, ‘You’re the Nicki Minaj of Thailand!’ It helps them to have a reference to understand who I am.”

She plans on returning to Thailand once travel restrictions loosen up, and her main goal is to give back to the Thai community—especially the girls. Although many Thai pop singers do a rap verse now and then, and some female rappers like Milli have found success recently, women are still not very visible in the Thai rap world. “I feel like there’s a lot more talent out there and I want to help wake people up. Not just in music, but in self-confidence, too. You can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it.”

由于新冠疫情爆发，Tsunari 一直未能回到泰国，只能和粉丝通过网络交流。她说：“泰国粉丝的留言通常是鼓励的话。可能因为我是黑人说唱歌手，也有很多人喜欢拿我去和欧美说唱做比较，他们有人会称我是‘泰国的麻辣鸡（Nicki Minaj）！’，不过这倒是蛮好的也，有助于他们记住我是谁。”

Tsunari 计划在放宽旅行限制后重返泰国，主要是想和泰国的乐迷们来个零距离接触，尤其是当中的女孩子们。现在，虽然嘻哈在泰国越滚越大，而且像 Milli 等泰国女性说唱歌手也备受瞩目，但在泰国说唱圈，女性说唱歌手的存在感仍然不高。她接着说道：“我觉得其实还有很多才华横溢的歌手。我想通过自己的努力让人们意识到，只要专心致志，你可以做自己想做的一切！”

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Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

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供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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The Physical & Metaphysical 拨开表相，是脆弱且叛逆的自己

March 24, 2021 2021年3月24日

A woman dressed in white kneels on a sofa. She tilts her head slightly to the side with an alert expression on her face. Next to her, a half-dressed man sits on a table, staring directly at the viewer. This is a photograph from Almost Naked, a series of works photographer Shen Wei created upon arriving in Minnesota.

“I had just arrived in the States, I had culture shock,” he recalls. “I was not brave enough to explore myself, so I looked inwards through other people.” These intimate portraits are of everyday Americans in their homes and neighborhoods, in repose or suspended in a moment of daily routines. Some of the photographed subjects are fully dressed, some are fully exposed. Their gaze into the camera is firm and unambiguous. We are looking at them as they are looking at us. There is simultaneously a sense of candidness and vulnerability.

身着白色蕾丝边裙子的女子跪坐在沙发上，她头微微转向眼神的另一侧，露出稍稍警惕的神情。在她旁边，半裸男子佝偻在桌子的一边，双眼直勾勾地看着镜头。这是摄影师沈玮的《近乎赤裸》（Almost Naked）系列照片之一，是他到达明尼苏达州后所拍摄的作品。“美国和中国完全不同，带给我文化上很大冲击。那时候的我还没有足够勇气去探索自己，所以先把目光望向了身边的人”他回忆道。

沈玮往往希望通过作品来呈现普通美国人的日常，场景发生在房间或是街上。照片中，人物肖像好像没有任何距离感，令人倍感亲切。他们中有人穿着整齐，有人则全身赤裸，坚定不移地向镜头坦述心声。观众好像能与照片中的角色用眼神交流。但同时，一阵阵率真、脆弱的气氛从相片中缓缓升起。

Bodies are sites of power and introspection in Shen’s work. As one of the primary mediums through which he explores human sentiments, representations of the body are a dominant theme in his oeuvre. After acclimating to life in the States, Shen gradually turned his lens on himself both as the perceived other and as the agent of his identity. He placed himself in caves, the Ganges, homes, untamed nature, and manicured gardens. Attempting to dive into who he is across locales of spirituality, domesticity, the urban and the rural, he treats his own body as the vessel of expressions of the most fundamental human emotions: fear, nostalgia, disorientation, uncertainty, and so on. Over a span of a decade, Shen gathered this collection of self-portraits, forming the series I Miss You Already.

在沈玮的作品里，力量与自省都寄托于人的体内。作为他探索人类情感的主要媒介之一，身体是他作品的中心。在适应了美国的生活之后，沈玮开始逐渐将镜头转向自己。以旁人的视角观察这个可以代表自己身份的角色。

沈玮让身体置身于洞穴、恒河、房屋、大自然和修剪整齐的花园等种种场景中。试图在精神层面、家庭生活、城市和农村等不同语境和环境下的自己。他将自己的身体当作表达人类基本情感的工具：恐惧、怀旧、迷失、未知等等。十年间，沈玮将这些“自拍”作品整理为《Miss You Already（已经想念你）》系列。

In one photograph, he can be seen lying on a bed covered by fuchsia-colored floral sheets in an old Shanghainese apartment. Shen grew up in one of the numerous old lilong neighborhoods in downtown Shanghai, where space was so scarce that the families of each building shared a communal kitchen and bathroom. The artist mentioned that the heat and staleness of the room he posed in reminded him of his childhood home.

照片上，沈玮赤裸全身地躺在老上海公寓里，床单上缝绣着紫红色花卉图案，描述着时代的痕迹。他打小在上海的弄堂里长大，在这个寸土寸金的城市，一栋楼里往往是家家户户共用一个公用厨房和浴室。沈玮说当时拍照这张照片的时候，房间里破旧的家具散出浓郁的闷热气，让他一下子想起小时候的家。

Also related to his childhood in Shanghai is the self-portrait titled Earthly, in which he revisits his longing for nature. Growing up in the narrow lanes of Shanghai, nature seemed far out of reach. Taking inspiration from Henri Rousseau’s The Dream (1910), Shen found a pond surrounded by blossoms and lush green to bathe himself in. “I stayed in the water for a good while,” he says. “There were lots of insects around and the temperature was a bit low. I didn’t start shooting until I felt I was one with nature.”

另一幅与他在上海童年息息相关的作品是自拍肖像《Earthly》，该作品诠释了他一直以来对大自然的向往。对于上海狭窄的同堂而言，大自然总是遥不可及。他以亨利·卢梭（Henri Rousseau）的《梦境》（The Dream）（1910）为灵感，找到一块池塘，这里四周环绕花朵和植被。“那次我在水中呆了很久。周围虫子很多，也蛮冷的。直到我觉得自己与大自然融为一体，才肯开始拍摄。” 他说道。

Using himself as the subject of his works, Shen Wei gestures towards introspection and self-discovery. As the artist puts it, “making these self-portraits is an experience of emotional release, a way to express my desire for openness and possibility, as well as a step towards learning acceptance”. These images are his instrument for self-reflection. By shedding away all the protective layers, Shen’s naked body is that of a newborn, an act of vulnerability and rebellion.

Gradually, his exploration of the self went beyond the physical world of palpable reality into his subconsciousness. Intrigued by the mysterious and the inexplicable in his dreams, Shen started to search for the mythical from scenarios of the quotidian. The resulting photographs are what make up the series Between Blossoms, a documentation of the fantastical inscrutability in his voyage across diverse geographies and imaginary landscapes.

随后，沈玮以自己为创作对象进一步探索。正如他所说：“将镜头对准自己是一种情感上的释放。能够满足我坦白的声音，也是接纳与学习的过程。”这些照片是他通往内心的有力道具。当外在的躯壳被层层扒去，真正的自我变得清晰透明，以此寓意新生，既脆弱又叛逆。

此后，他对自我的探索逐渐超越可触摸的现实世界，延伸到潜意识领域。那些神秘与奇妙的梦境令他着迷，于是，沈玮开始从日常生活的场景中寻找如梦似幻的画面，并拍摄了《盛开之间》（Between Blossoms）系列作品，用镜头记录着他徘徊于现实世界与虚构境地里，那些难以捉摸的奇妙时刻。

Caught between reality and reverie, the images in Between Blossoms often resemble a fictional backdrop against which a story is set to unfold. A Glass of Water is one such example. Surrounded by neatly organized books, the reflection of a red plastic cup takes center stage. The filled cup and its reflection in the mirror suggest a human presence preceding this moment. Light shot through the carmine plastic, its translucence, intensified by the smoothness of the mirror, lends the scene a certain surreal-ness. In Table for Two, a glance from a window unexpectedly turned voyeuristic as the camera focuses on a table set for two. In the foreground, green window frames are juxtaposed with the pink table napkins shaped into an origami of cauldrons. Behind the table, the background is an expanse of impenetrable darkness. It’s simultaneously an image of suspense and that of atmospheric forlornness.

《盛开之间》系列作品便是介于现实与幻想之间，当现实的事物被梦幻着色，为观众缓缓引述故事的开端。在其中一幅名为《A Glass of Water（杯中水）》的作品中，规整的老式书架旁边，梳妆镜中的深红色塑料杯子成为焦点。装满水的杯子和镜中的映像暗示着此处之前曾有人来过。穿透胭脂红塑料的光线，在平滑的镜子映衬下，显得更晶莹剔透，令整个场景多了一层超现实感。在另一幅作品《Table for Two（双人桌）》中，昏暗的灯光下窗内淡蓝色的双人桌格外引人注目；虽看似随意地一瞥，却意外地让人有种偷窥的错觉。前景的绿色窗框与考究的粉红色餐巾相互映衬，桌子后面的背景则是无尽的黑暗。整张照片令人浮想连连，同时一股愁绪孕育而生。

The artist’s search for the mythical evolved over time into a more metaphysical dimension. Inspired by classical Chinese paintings where large swathes of emptiness are treated as solid space, Shen Wei started transforming the empty space in his photographs into containers of qi. Qi is considered a vital force that flows throughout any living entity. It is a form of energy that underpins the philosophy of Chinese medicine but also regarded as an essential element that can create certain ambiance in the living environment. For Shen, qi freely circulates in his images, functioning as intermissions in between vignettes of a narrative in his latest body of work, Broken Sleeves.

慢慢地，沈玮对神秘感的探索逐渐演变为形而上学的维度。受到中国古典绘画的影响，大量幻想的元素围绕在现实空间里。画面中，那些不可名状的光晕、或是叙事手段被他称之为 “气”。作为中国古代中医哲学的基础，“气” 被视为是在流动在生命体间的某种力量，也是在生命在空间内创造氛围的基本元素。沈玮让 “气” 在其照片中自由流动，在他的最新作品系列《Broken Sleeve（断袖）》中，不同叙事的片段被这股“气”串连起来。

Broken Sleeves borrows from the story of an ancient Chinese emperor whose lover fell asleep on his sleeve. To not wake the lover from his dreams, the emperor cut off his sleeves. Shen dressed himself in a manner of historical characters in costume dramas. Wearing an imperial dragon robe, he plays the role of the emperor, but a ball gag in his mouth rendering the character out of place. In another image, he becomes the lover, reclining on a bed with elaborate wood carvings and embroidered blush curtains. In yet another, he time travels to assume the personality of a triad boss from China’s Republican era, dressed in a long mandarin robe and a scholar fan, also with the same gag as that of the emperor. Threading these personas together is the trajectory of qi as if pinpointing the landmarks of the protagonist’s journey across time and space. It assumes the form of a glowing red cube of light that impregnated the pavilion—its throbbing heart in the midst of flourishing vegetation whose verdancy is reduced to monochrome (Pavilion). It goes on to be the ruby-colored light traveling behind an arched door on an old street with chipped teal paint (Doorway (Glow)).

《断袖》借鉴自中国西汉王朝，汉哀帝与御史董恭之子董贤的故事：某日，汉哀帝的情人董贤枕靠在他的衣袖上入睡，为了不让他从梦中醒来，汉哀帝割断了衣袖。这段讲述男男之恋的故事后来被用来描述男性之间的相互爱慕的情节。

照片中，沈玮穿上戏曲龙袍，饰演帝王角色，情趣口球被塞进嘴里；另一张照片里，他又变成故事中帝王的情人，床边布满精美木雕和刺绣帘子；随后，他又摇身一变，穿越到民国时期，身穿长袍，手握纸扇。将这些不同角色串连起来的，便是“气”的轨迹，仿佛在标注角色穿越时空的旅程。该系列的其他作品中，“气”是亭子中发光的红色立方体，如同在繁茂树丛中跳动的心脏，周围的树木都被处理成单调的黑白色（《Pavilion（亭子）》）；并随即化作一道红光，穿过老街和拱门（《Doorway (月洞门道)》）。

There is a distinct classicism in Shen Wei’s oeuvre. The compositions of his photographs call to mind those of Flemish still lifes, his preference for natural light instead of studio lighting results in a palette close to Old Master paintings. When an image’s center of attention rests on a human form, the contours of the body with all its built-up tensions reflect an influence from Hellenistic sculptures. It is intriguing to see how the artist gleans both from classical Chinese paintings and Greco-Roman traditions of forms in his image making. Shen Wei is unique in combining the two and imbues it with a diaristic style of storytelling. Going through his works is like reading a poem or flipping through someone’s old journal, a montage of his reconnaissance of the self situated in the imagined and the familiar.

不难发现，沈玮的作品的确伴有中国古典主义美学色彩，而其作品的构图又令人想起一些西方早期油画风格，例如佛兰德斯画派（Flemish）中的静物画。他偏爱自然光而绝非摄影棚照明，这让作品色调与经典油画逼近。在以人为主题的照片中，身体的轮廓及张力又带些许希腊雕塑的意味。他出人意料地同时从中国古典绘画与传统的希腊罗马艺术形式汲取灵感，这是他独树一帜之处，并赋予其作品日记体般的叙事方式，十分引人入胜。翻阅他的作品，就仿佛在读一首诗或某人的旧日记，是一套属于他自己的“蒙太奇”。

Like our stories? Follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Website: www.shenwei.studio
Instagram: @shenweiartist

Contributor: Ashley Shen
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li
Images Courtesy of Shen Wei & Flowers Gallery

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

网站: www.shenwei.studio
Instagram: @shenweiartist

供稿人: Ashley Shen
英译中: Olivia Li
图片由沈玮与弗劳尔斯画廊提供

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Wooden Wonders 123，木头人

March 22, 2021 2021年3月22日

The woodcraft of Wei Hua (a.k.a Moil W.) excites the imagination. With his hand-carved sculptures, he’s given life to a diverse cast of lovable characters that range from dachshunds and insects to mushrooms and fruits. Some are more introverted, while others enjoy congregating and socializing with one another. Despite their different personalities, they all seem to inhabit the same fairytale forest. Looking at these adorable figurines, all too easy to start daydreaming about their backstories. Who are they? Where do they come from? What are they up to?

Moil_W （魏华）的木作系列会激发每个看客的想象力。

水果、蘑菇、腊肠狗被制成可可爱爱的模样，仿佛被赋予了崭新的生命，它们既是独立的个体，也热爱群居。这些小木头人被放置在蓊郁森林盆景上的时候，宛如置身在童话故事中的卡通人物，各自都拥有自己的未来要去闯荡，使人不得不去联想它们是谁、有着怎样的性格、未来会演发出怎样的故事。

Wei established Diga, a woodcraft brand focused on handmade toy figurines, in 2019. Though he never studied woodworking, a degree in video-game character design from the Hubei Academy of Arts set him off on the creative path and feeds into his current works. In fact, to him, woodcraft isn’t that unlike illustration—with its inherent earthy tones and varied textures, wood can be assembled into unique designs. He loves the material so much that he often doesn’t even paint over it, preferring to retain its original colors.

This means that selecting the right type of wood is perhaps one of the most important part of his production process. In the early stages of a sculpture design, she looks at different wood samples, searching for the perfect texture and color to work with. “As I understood the material more and more, I got better at choosing the right wood for my designs,” she says. “To depict whites, I’ll use maple wood or ash wood. For grays, I’ll use cherry wood, African coralwood, or something similar. To depict blacks, ebony, black walnut, or jichimu are some of my go-to’s.”

2019 年，Moil_W 创立了 diga：一个纯手工制作的木制玩偶工坊。并非木工专业出身的他毕业于湖北美院，原本从事的是游戏动画设计，但一直以来，他始终希望能有朝一日把自己的插画实体化做出来，几经探索后，木头就成为了他创作的载体。对他来说，木料就像是绘画中颜料一样，不同的纹理和色彩基调，可以组合形成不同层次的物件。和其他大多数木工作品不同，Moil 的作品不上油、不涂漆，尽力去呈现和葆有木头的原色。

在一开始做最初步的设计的时候，他会去搜集很多不同种类的木料小样，在心里去模拟他们拼合搭配的效果，“在上手熟悉了之后，我确定了一个比较好的一种搭配方式，也是就设计的黑白灰关系，白会用到枫木，或白蜡木，灰会用到樱桃木、红花梨等一些颜色适中的木料，黑会用到黑胡桃、鸡翅木和黑檀之类。”

Heavier subject matters aren’t off limits to Wei neither, despite the lighthearted art style. In After I’m Gone, he touches on death and our eventual return to nature. An adorable skeletal figure with a crown of flowers represents the loss of our physical bodies, while an earthworm with a Rudolf-like nose hides out within a block of wood, symbolizing the earth. Above, vibrant sunflowers and patches of mushrooms have grown. “After I die, my body will slowly rot into the soil. The soil will grow flowers and plants, the flowers and plants will be eaten by insects, giving way to new life in an endless cycle,” Wei says. “Today’s people close themselves off in coffins and jars after they pass. They can’t return to nature. For these people, they’re not able to reincarnate. It’s sad.”

比如在《我死之后》，他正是将人类肉身源于自然、最终归于自然的故事具象化了出来，不过是以可爱木作的方式——头戴鲜花的 Q 版骷髅置于底层，预示着肉体的逝去；中间有红鼻头的蚯蚓有半截匿于浅棕色=象征土壤的木块之下；在土壤上方，又长出了鲜艳招摇的向日葵与蘑菇，也有其他动物来打洞做窝……“我死之后身体会慢慢腐败变成土壤，土壤会长出花草，花草又会被昆虫啃食，自己身体仿佛又转化为了新的生命，这是物质的轮回。” Moil 说道，“可如今的人们死后被封闭在一个无法与自然接触的密闭环境里，我反而觉得变成了永不超生转世的状态，想想还挺可怜的。”

Despite the occasional foray into these heavier subject matters, it’s hard to not crack a smile when looking at Wei’s figurines. With their round, curvy silhouettes, they’re not only adorable in appearence—they often come with endearing backstories as well. “People love Honey and Sparkle,” he says. “Even though they’re cute, what these two characters represent are equally important. Honey the bee represents hard work, and Sparkle the moth—with its affinity for finding light—represents the pursuit of justice.”

Every character that Wei has created is envisioned as part of the same universe, and with even more new figurines coming up, he plans on exhibiting the full collection together. “The work may have different meaning based on how a person views themselves, the world around them, and what they hope for the world to be.”

单看一枚枚小木头人，都有着柔和的线条、圆鼓鼓的身形。Moil 也为每个木头人都准备了介绍，为它们铺设了丰富的故事背景。“就好像很多人都喜欢作品中的‘蜜儿’和‘闪亮’一样，虽然他们都很可爱，但作品背后的含义同样很重要，小蜜蜂代表着勤劳，飞蛾代表的追逐光明与正义。”Moil 说。

Moil 解释道，这些小木头人其实都是他构建的童话世界设定中的一份子，随着 diga 产出的木作缓慢壮大，他会将最终所有的作品摆在一起，去拼凑出那个他想展现给大家看的内心世界。Moil 说，“这关系到你如何看待自己和这个世界，这个世界需要什么样的人和品质。”

Like our stories? Follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Website: www.diga.design
Weibo: ~/Moil_W
Zcool: ~/Moil_W

Contributor: Chen Yuan

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

网站: www.diga.design
微博: ~/Moil_W
站酷: ~/Moil_W

供稿人: Chen Yuan

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Artisanal Sneakers 旧鞋好去处，缝线好功夫

March 19, 2021 2021年3月19日

The customized sneakers of JunAle bring Japanese textile traditions to Western sneaker culture, adding a level of individuality that’s rare in the corporate-led industry. The amount of investment it takes to manufacture sneakers creates a high hurdle for alternatives to the giant global brands with their endless supply chains and massive advertising war chests. But the Osakan designer uses his mending skills and patchwork stylings to create unique footwear that shrugs off the hype cycle.

日本大阪设计师 Jun Ale 设计的运动鞋大部分都取自市面上常见的鞋款，不过通过日本传统布艺的加持，为大企业所导向的球鞋产业带来难得一见的个性元素。由于运动鞋的生产需要巨额投资，独立品牌往往难以与有着庞大供应链和广告投入的全球巨头相提并论。不过，Jun Ale 利用自己的修补与拼贴技术，创造出独一无二的风格，尝试打破运动鞋行业的一贯规则，令人眼前一亮！

Sitting in his small studio surrounded by piles of fabric scraps, JuneAle, who’s real name is June Sugimae, is focused on his work, sewing a paisley patch onto a lightly used pair of navy blue trainers. His design repertoire is heavy on indigo and denim, which are combined in layered patterns with contrasting stitches applied liberally. Oftentimes he’ll simply use stitches to create new patterns, covering the entire existing surface of a pair of sneakers with exposed threads. The Nike Air Footscape in his hands already looks a bit like the vintage tabi shoes on the table in front of him—albeit without the split toes—so he builds on that connection to guide his new design. “I’ve always been interested in bringing new life to old things in ways that will promote greater posterity,” he says. “I also believe that incorporating new elements into traditional designs can create a new and greater worth that is even perhaps more relevant.”

His studio is an extension of that belief, a converted printing press near the historic Tokaido Road that runs between Osaka and Tokyo. “I’ve always wanted to do my design work somewhere with a sense of place and history,” Sugimae says.

在 Jun 不大的工作室里，四下堆满了零散面料，他正专注地埋头工作，将佩斯利贴片（paisley patch）缝到一对几乎全新的海军蓝色球鞋上。Jun 的大部分设计主要采用靛蓝染色和牛仔布，层层叠搭图案，并通过大量对比色的缝线贯穿细节。他擅用缝线来完成图案轮廓，由裸露的针线点缀整个鞋面。

你看，Nike Air Footscape 在他的改造之后，看上去和桌子上的复古 Tabi 分趾鞋已有几分相像，只不过少了分趾的造型。他常常在不同球鞋之间建立联系，雕琢出属于自己的风格。他说：“我一直喜欢重新演绎传统，让过去的鞋子焕发出新的生命力。我相信，将新元素融入传统设计能带来完全不同的价值表现，也让设计变得更有趣。”

而他的工作室本身就是这一信念的完美诠释。其前身是一间印刷厂，坐落于大阪和东京之间别具历史意义的东海道（Tokaido）附近。Jun 说：“这算是我的一个心愿，希望能在历史和文化气息浓厚的空间里创作。”

Sugimae studied fashion and tailoring in Japan and London and has over ten years of experience designing sportswear, but he only started upcycling about seven years ago. He also makes clothing using upcycled fabrics. He sources his materials from antique stores in the countryside and some local marketplaces in Osaka and Tokyo.

Jun 曾在日本和伦敦学习时装和裁缝，拥有超过十年的运动服饰经验。大约在七年前，他便开始专注于旧物的改造设计。由他一手打造原创的品牌 JunAle 也有对回收面料的再加工，其中用到的一些设计原材料均来自日本古着店以及大阪、东京的市集。

His sneakers are about 60 percent upcycled, depending on the order from a customer or his own personal inspiration. He mostly works with Nikes and slip-on Vans, sometimes using a fresh new pair from the box. “When I work on used sneakers, I try to mend holes, rips, and breaks with sashiko hand stitches,” Sugimae explains. “It has good chemistry, so I prefer used sneakers rather than new ones.” This traditional stitching from the 1600s is decorative as well as functional, so in addition to repairing them, he’s giving them a renewed sense of style.

在 Jun 设计的球鞋中，有一半以上都来自旧物回收。一些设计来自客户订单需求；另外一些则出自他的个人灵感。其中大多数是 Nike 和 Vans，新旧鞋参半。Jun 解释说：“二手运动鞋有很多岁月的痕迹，我尽量用刺子秀工艺（Sashiko）来缝补破洞和裂痕。出来的效果很好，所以相比于新鞋，我更喜欢用二手运动鞋创作。”这种起源于 1600 年代传统缝线工艺既具装饰性又实用，在修复鞋子之外，还能赋予鞋子一股新鲜的活力。

The process of customizing a pair of sneakers has different steps that depend on the type of sneaker Sugimae is working with. If he’s designing something for a customer, they’ll either send him a pair or ask him to pick something up locally, then they’ll discuss general design points and agree on an overall direction. Next, he figures out which materials match well with the sneakers. “This can be measured in harmony or contrast,” he explains. From there, materials and threading are applied one at a time. “Even if an application may appear jarring on its own, taken as an element in the greater picture, a cohesive artistic message can be relayed.” Each pair takes about a month or two to create, and he says his designs can last indefinitely since it’s usually the soles that take the most wear and tear and they can be replaced as many times as the owner wants.

不同类型的运动鞋，在设计时也需要 “对症下药”。如果有客户邀请设计球鞋，客户一般会事先把鞋子寄给他，然后一起讨论整体的设计方式，并达成共识。设计之初，他需要先确定哪些材料适合这双运动鞋。他解释说：“我要考虑所选材料是否与球鞋本身的设计想搭配；或形成强烈的对比反差。”在选择完成之后，他才能将材料和缝线同时添加到运动鞋表面。“即使单独一个的拼贴元素看起来格格不入，但放到整体的设计上，就能传达出某个一致的艺术讯息。”每双鞋的制作大约需要一两个月的时间。Jun 说自己改造的鞋子可以穿很久，因为通常承受磨损的只是鞋底，而他设计的鞋底是可以不断更换的。

The particular style of upcycling that Sugimae practices is rooted in a Japanese tradition called boro, a process of mending and patchworking scraps to create a whole new piece of material. Boro was mainly used by the poor as an economic way to make clothes last longer and the materials were often dyed with indigo. But it was largely abandoned with the mass production of clothing in the 1900s. “I love a good and compelling folklore story that can be told without the use of the written word,” he smiles. “The emotions in such a work can reveal something that a text-based historical record may betray. Boro follows this thought line. The materials used invariably have a story and resulting symbolism. Through the discipline’s techniques, even poverty and shame can be elevated while still retaining purity, and this can be done all without words.”

其实“回收并改造”的灵感最早源于日本的民间传统——褴褛（Boro），指的是通过缝缝补补打造新衣服的传统拼布文化和工艺。以前的穷人通过褴褛来延长衣服的使用寿命，并往往会对面料进行靛蓝染色处理。后来到了二十世纪，大批量机器生产的出现导致这一种传统在很大程度上被人们遗忘。“不同于文字，还有更多方式可以深刻地讲述民间传统，就比如现在我在做的事情，带给人文字无法传达的感受。褴褛工艺正是如此。每一块材料的背后总有一段故事及其意义。藉由这种工艺，即使是原本代表贫苦与卑微的旧物也能得到升华，同时保持纯净，这一切的实现并不需借助任何文字，用心感受就好了。”

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Website: www.junale.life
Instagram: @junale

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Photographer: Riku Yamashita
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

网站: www.junale.life
Instagram: @junale

供稿人: Mike Steyels
摄影师: Riku Yamashita
英译中: Olivia Li

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It’s All Relative 合家欢照片里，怎么只有你？

March 17, 2021 2021年3月17日

In front of a sky-patterned curtain, a mom cradles her baby. Her fatigue remains in plain sight, even through the heavy make-up. The dad, standing alongside, looks down at the kid with a look of love and concern. It’s a photo not unlike one you might find in your own family album, and it’s precisely this familiarity that draws you in for a closer look. But scrutiny will reveal something uncanny: both the mom and dad appear to be the same person. This is the work of Rie Yamada, a Nagoya-born and Germany-based artist who intrudes family portraits, replacing every individual with an alternate version of herself.

天蓝色的幕布前，一位身着家居服的妈妈抱着孩子，精致打扮的面容上依然可以看出疲态，另一边的丈夫低头看向宝宝，仿佛生怕它再次哭出声来似的小心翼翼；另一双情侣相互扶持地站在镜头前摆正姿势，笑得欢快，一人穿着明黄色的针织衫，一人身穿藏青色的套装……

这些角色和场景看起来如此熟悉，似乎就是寻常家庭相册里会出现的照片，但仔细一看，照片中的所有人却似乎都长成同一般模样。这就是日本艺术家 Rie Yamada 的作品——她把合家欢照片中的人物，都替换上了自己的脸……

The series, Familie Werden (meaning “Becoming Family” in German), is part one of a trilogy that examines the past, present, and future in the context of familial life.

To create the series, Rie obtained family photos from second-hand markets, auctions, and internet archives. Referencing these images, she found or reconstructed settings in the likeness of the original image, dressed like the images’ subjects, and mimicked their poses. “In front of the lens, wearing their clothes, hairstyle, and make-up, I often felt like I was really a part of their family,” Rie laughs.

Rie Yamada 出生于 1984 年的日本名古屋，她在德国长大，毕业于柏林魏森塞艺术学院。“Familie Werden”是她关于家庭主题创作的摄影系列三部曲中的第一部分，旨在聚焦家庭的过去、现在和未来。

这个系列中的每张图片都是从旧货市场、拍卖会和网络档案中收集来的大量快照，也分别来自世界各地不同的家庭，她只是“重新创作”了这些照片，把自己作为画中人“替换”掉原有的家庭成员。她会通过浏览各种历史和老照片，收集尽可能多的信息，然后还原照片中的布景，摆出近乎一模一样的姿势，再定时拍摄，以此来讲述一个个全新的故事。

By re-enacting these family photos from the past, she examines the weakening of family bonds in modern times. The project has even helped her glean new insight into her own family background and ancestry. “We have photo albums from my mother’s childhood and onwards, but unfortunately, we hardly have any of the older albums with family members that I have never met because our relatives had gotten rid of them,” she sighs. “This was one of the factors that inspired me to focus on the topic of families and family photos.”

“很奇怪的是，站在镜头前，穿着相似的衣服、妆容和发型，我觉得自己仿佛已经融为这些家庭的一份子了。”Rie Yamada 说道。她觉得，要了解这些家庭和过去的家庭照片，最好的方法就是真正“成为”这个家庭里的一员。在这整个过程里，也让她思考了自己和现实家庭的关系，了解到了原本不知道的家族历史。

“我们家确实有我母亲童年及以后的相册，但可惜的是，那些收有未曾某面的家庭成员们的相册，已经被亲戚扔掉了。”她不无遗憾地说道，“这也是促使我关注家庭和家庭照片这一主题的因素之一。”

Another source of inspiration came from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, or rather, a specific part of the recovery effort. Countless homes were destroyed by the disaster, and people’s personal belongings were washed away or waterlogged. Despite the amount of financial damage this caused, many people only wanted one thing: their family photo albums. And so, volunteers came together to find, clean, and return these lost family photos to their rightful owners. Rie found these efforts fascinating. It shined a light on just how much people prioritized their families and memories.

这个摄影三部曲系列的诞生还源自另一个契机。2011年，日本福岛大地震和海啸导致了当地无数人家妻离子散、流离失所，而千千万万的幸存者们，比起睹物思人的痛苦，更希望的却是能尽快找回自己的家庭大合照，这比他们在灾难中失去的任何东西都重要。于是，当地出现了很多志愿者发掘、清理、归还家庭照片的项目。Rie Yamada 觉得这非常有趣，也让她对家庭重新产生了思考。

The relationship between an individual and their own family has since been an ongoing topic of interest for Rie, and her roleplay of the different individuals that compose a family—with their own personalities, genders, and backgrounds—has allowed her to better grasp the nuances of the relationship dynamics of different families. It’s also a meditation on the changing photo-taking habits of modern times. Today, people most often turn their cameras on themselves, taking filtered selfies for their social media. “Photographs are proof of existence, especially now, because we live in a time where photography has been popularized and digitized,” she says. “We must think about the future of photography and the future of family photography, and because we live in a time of drastic social changes, we must also think about what makes a family a family.”

Rie Yamada 喜欢探究人与家庭之间的密切关系。无论是笑靥如画的青春少女，或是满头白发、儿孙满堂的老奶奶……身为传统血亲关系和现代个人主义两相交融的一代，Rie Yamada 近乎本能地深入到这种文化冲突中去，并将此借由镜头展现出来。

“照片是我们存在的证明。尤其是我们生活在一个摄影普及化、数字化的时代，我们必须思考家庭照片的未来、思考摄影的未来。也正因为我们生活在一个社会大变革的时代，我们必须思考什么才是一个家庭。”

If Familie Werden is an examination of family through the lens of the past, then part two of the series, Familie Suchen (meaning “Looking for Family”), can be seen as an extension of similar thematics in the present time. In it, she looks to the matchmaking parties of contemporary Japan for inspiration. More reflective than critical, she dressed in the likeness of the men she encountered at these events—many of whom have hopes of meeting someone they can build a family with. The project examines the nature of modern relationships, self-identity, and asks viewers to reconsider what they truly value in a romantic partner.

For the project’s finale, which remains untitled, Rie will look to the future. “In art history and photography, family has been a frequently revisited subject,” she says. “Families are groups of people that embody the cultural and historical backdrop of the time; therefore, family photos exemplify the cultural and historical background and are a reflection of society at the time.”

Even after she completes the project, Rie plans on creating more art that builds on the theme of family. She says that it may just become her life’s work. “Whatever the topic, I would like to keep exploring the various aspects of society through my own experiences.”

如果说《Familie Werden》侧重于家庭的过往历史，那么在该系列的第二部分《Familie Suchen》中，Rie Yamada 把主题伸入了另一个层面：当下。为此，她寻找“租赁家庭”和“在线相亲”活动，这种租借活动旨在可为客户提供合适的演员，以在社交活动场合中扮演朋友、家人或同事的角色。从而去了解眼下日本年轻人对“租赁亲友”对需求，并在作品中探讨这种屡见不鲜的现象。

Rie Yamada 目前正在创作该系列的第三部分，这则将关于她自己和未来家庭的故事了。她说：“在艺术史和摄影史上，家庭的主题被反复研究。家庭是一个人的集合，体现了当时的文化和历史背景，因此，家庭照片体现了文化和历史背景，是当时社会的反映。”但如今，“家庭”是传统社会的基本构成单元的观念渐渐弱化，取而代之的是“个人”，越来越成为社会基本单位。

她计划在这三部分系列完成后，也会进一步研究家庭这个话题，作为我人生工作的一部分。“但不管是什么主题，我都想通过自己的经历，继续探讨社会的方方面面。”她自信地说道。

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Website: www.rieyamada.com
Instagram: @rie_bergfeld

Contributor: Chen Yuan

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网站: www.rieyamada.com
Instagram: @rie_bergfeld

供稿人: Chen Yuan

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Spiraling Thoughts 光的作用是为了投射阴影

March 15, 2021 2021年3月15日

Reality isn’t black and white, but in a world lacking color, finding the light becomes all the more important. This is the philosophy that the works of John Marin orbit around. In his grayscale portraits, he broaches difficult issues such as alienation and spiraling thoughts but does so without sacrificing the dignity of the individuals who he’s chosen for his canvases. In fact, his art looks to empower them.

现实并非黑白两色。但在去掉色彩的世界，寻找光线变得更加重要，这正是菲律宾艺术家 John Marin 的核心创作理念。在他的黑白肖像作品中，他大胆探讨疏离与负面情绪的难题，但依然保持了人物的尊严。实际上，他的艺术作品旨在赋予人物力量。

The Filipino artist stripped all color from his paintings 11 years ago as a self-imposed challenge, and ended up realizing his works were more striking and dramatic without them. Using oil paints and pastels, Marin renders realistic portraits encircled by abstract shapes and text, all of which appear with rough, weathered textures. The people he portrays are based on photographs he’s taken. “They’re friends and strangers,” he says. “I choose images based on feeling.”

11 年前，他挑战自己尝试在创作时摒弃所有色彩。这次的尝试却让他意识到，没有色彩的作品反而更引人注目，更具戏剧性。John 使用油画颜料和粉彩铅笔绘画写实的肖像，再在四周添加抽象的形状和文字，并刻意营造粗糙的纹理。他笔下的人物都是以他拍摄的人像照片为原型创作的。他说：“这些人有的是朋友，有的是陌生人，我都是按着感觉来挑选照片的。”

In the recent series of paintings, Come Home, Marin explores the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, which spread exponentially for months around Manila despite one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns, recently seeing a new surge nearing record levels. The Philippines has ranked among the highest number of cases in Southeast Asia. “This new normal is hard for everyone,” he says. “This unfamiliar environment is alienating and uncomfortable. We need to adapt.” None of this is literal in the work; it’s more of a gut feeling that he transfers to the canvas.

But feelings of alienation are nothing new for him. It’s something he’s dealt with throughout his life and career, being shunned in school and the art world. “Being different reminds me that I’m unique.” Adapting doesn’t mean conforming, being something that he’s not. He respects people’s differences but also seeks out what we have in common.

在最新的作品系列《回家》（Come Home）中，John 深入探讨了疫情所引发的不确定性。尽管马尼拉也实施了漫长而严格的封禁措施，但疫情仍在短短数月之内迅速蔓延，最近感染人数又出现了接近历史最高水平的飙升。菲律宾也是东南亚确诊人数最多的国家之一。他说：“这种新常态对每个人来说都很难。前所未有的情况让人们相互疏远，人人惶恐不安。我们需要去适应这样的新常态。”虽然他并未在作品直截了当地描画任何疫情的场景，但现实的情绪却弥漫于每幅画中。

然而，对 John 而言，疏离感并不陌生，毕竟这是他一直以来在生活和职业生涯中不断在处理的问题，从学校到艺术界，他总是感觉自己被排斥在外。“与众不同也就代表我是独一无二的。”适应并不意味着顺从，也不意味着假装成为他人。他尊重每个人的差异，但也想要寻求人与人之间的共同点。

Marin’s use of Chinese characters in this series serves dual purposes, creating a layer of distance for Filipino viewers unfamiliar with the language while also forcing them to appreciate it on a different level by relating with the texture and mood of the paintings. The script is painted directly over faces, resembling the ubiquitous graffiti of an urban metropolis. The Chinese text that appears all come from Encountering Sorrow by Chinese poet Qu Yuan. “Overcoming loneliness is the biggest challenge of every individual. Most of my works depict this feeling as commonly shared by many people despite their differences.”

John 在该系列中使用汉字创作有两个目的：一方面是让不熟悉中文的菲律宾观众产生距离感，另一方面是迫使观众通过画面的纹理与情绪，从另一个层面去欣赏作品。而直接涂写于人物脸上的文字，也令人联想到城市中无处不在的涂鸦。他摘录的中文词句源自屈原的《离骚》。“克服孤独感是每个人最大的挑战。我的大多数作品都旨在描绘出这种感觉。这是不同的人之间的共同感受。”

The layered marks that often hover over his portraits are a continuation of Marin’s previous works. In these paintings, circular rings nearly fill the entire canvas, spiraling outward from the center of the composition where the subjects’ eyes peer out in a penetrating stare. “The eyes are the window to the soul,” he says. “Everything we perceive in this material world passes through the eyes.” The swirling lines, painted in an improvised fashion and in a loose visual style, represent the ripple of thoughts and ideas radiating outward, one creating another in undying expansion.

The textures and shades of Marin’s work evoke a dark aura, but after a moment’s gaze, it’s not hard to find the warmth within them. Just because light’s presence in the work serves mainly to cast deep shadows doesn’t mean it’s less significant than the darkness. The ripples hide the people within them almost entirely but the eyes are all that’s necessary. And while his new works depict subjects in a sort of definite pause they don’t feel beaten. His work acknowledges the difficulties of life while refusing to let go of hope in humankind.

而层叠于肖像之上的标记，则是对 John 以往作品的延续。在这些画作中，圆环几乎占据整块画布，从画面中心向外盘旋，而人物的双眼则从中向外凝视。他说：“眼睛是灵魂的窗口。我们正是透过双眼来观察外面的世界。”旋涡线条呈现出即兴、涣散的视觉风格，寓意像波纹般向外扩散的想法，一个接一个地不断衍生丰富。

John 作品的纹理与色调黯淡、质感稠郁，但凝视片刻后，你总能从中发现一丝暖意。光的主要作用是为了投射深沉的阴影，但这并不意味着光的地位不如阴影重要。涟漪的波纹几乎完全隐藏了其中的人物，但却掩盖不了他们的双眼。此外，虽然他在新作品中描画了人物的定格瞬间，但他们看上去却并未被生活打败。他的作品承认生活的困难，但拒绝放弃希望。

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Instagram: @alongside.maya

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

Instagram: @alongside.maya

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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Substance & Aesthetics 特效是一种无所顾忌的自在

March 12, 2021 2021年3月12日

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Mention of CGI often brings to mind blockbusters depicting planetary threats and epic battles, but could these graphical innovations be used for something a bit more personal? Science fiction and comic-book adaptations are great, but how could this new form of moving image be harnessed for more introspective or insightful means? This is a topic of deep reflection for filmmaker Andrew Thomas Huang, whose work tells quiet stories elevated by powerful imagery.

He’s well known for making work that breaks down these boundaries, using painterly motifs and digital tools. Music videos for the likes of Bjork, FKA Twigs, and Serpentwithfeet burst with computer art in new and creative ways. Short films such as Flesh Nest—which features a couple entwined in each other’s arms as a new, artificial world grows around them, using their skin as fertile grounds—test our perception of what filmmaking can be.

提起 CGI 特效，总会令人联想到各种星球灾难和史诗级大片，而这些创新图像技术是否也适用于更偏向个人层面的创作？用 CGI 来表现科幻片和漫画改编电影其效果固然惊人，但这类动态图像技术如何用来表现令人深思或洞察幽微的故事情节呢？这是电影制作人 Andrew Thomas Huang 所思考的问题，目前，他正尝试用 CGI 特效点缀生活中平凡的故事。

Andrew 的作品向来具有突破性，尤其擅长运用绘画功底与数字工具进行创作。他曾经为 Bjork、FKA Twigs 和 Serpentwithfeet 所创作的音乐视频，无不是令人耳目一新的创意数字艺术盛宴。像他的一部名叫《Flesh Nest》的短片中，一对拥吻的情侣正在不断为人工智能世界提供养料，使得他们不断繁衍壮大。影片中，Andrew 用极富想象力的画面诠释爱的伟大。而在他所创作的短片中，这样的例子还不胜枚举，不断挑战着观众对电影制作的认知。

After working in a major production studio and realizing that commercial filmmaking would never do it for him, he began exploring alternatives. “When Trump was elected in 2016 I slowly began to turn my lens toward more personal subject matter,” he says.

Huang is a gay Chinese-American who grew up in Los Angeles, where his father emigrated to from Hong Kong. His mother’s parents are also immigrants, having moved to the States from the Toisan region after World War II. And so, the election of a president who campaigned largely on hateful rhetoric and an anti-immigration platform forced him to look inwards. “Reflecting on my heritage and family history began to take priority in my life and I began asking myself why I couldn’t use the same tools and visual language that I use in larger film productions and music videos to talk about my personal story.”

曾在一家大型制片公司上班的他，不过随后逐渐意识到，商业电影制作模式并不适合自己。2016 年，特朗普当选美国总统之后，他开始渐渐把镜头对准了更个人的角度。

Andrew 是同性恋美籍华裔，自小在洛杉矶长大，父亲是来自香港的移民，姥爷则最早是二次世界大战后从台山搬来美国。当一位充满仇恨言论又主张反移民的总统上位，这迫使他更加听从自己内心的声音。“反思我的文化根源和家族史成了我日常里重要的部分；我开始扪心自问，为什么不能用这些视觉语言来讲述带有自身文化属性的故事呢？”

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Huang was raised on films and television featuring almost no Asian characters, and even fewer non-white stories about gay people. Telling his own story meant he could reach others who similarly grew up without representation in media. He believes putting more types of faces on screen is central to a more equitable society: “How can young people dream of certain paths if they don’t see themselves reflected in a given industry? We have to give under-represented artists the gate keys, and we have to showcase their work.”

This newfound dedication didn’t come with an abandon of visual-forward aesthetics however. “Visuals will always be the first instinct for me; I’ve always liked things that took me out of reality, that were brazenly artificial with unapologetic style,” Huang says. “I feel like sometimes in the indie narrative world, there’s a dominance of social realism that often ignores style.”

在 Andrew 小时候看过的电影和电视中，亚洲面孔几乎为零，关于非白人的同性恋故事就更是凤毛菱角了。通过讲述自己的故事，他想要引起那些与他有着相似经历、一样被大众化媒体所忽略人群的共鸣。他认为，要实现一个更平等的社会，就必须在屏幕上呈现更多元化的面孔，“如果年轻人在自己的行业都找不到存在感，他们又如何会敢在这条道路上继续追寻梦想呢？我们应该给予少数群体的艺术家机会，并多去展示他们的作品。”

即便有了全新的创作方向，Andrew 也并未放弃自己一贯的视觉语言。他说：“视觉永远是我的第一本能；我很喜欢能令我跳脱出现实的东西，毫不掩饰的人工特效是一种无所顾忌的自在。我觉得有时候在独立电影世界中，人们太关注社会现实，反而忽略了影像的风格。”

无法观看？前往腾讯视频

Huang pays meticulous attention to every visual detail, from styling, makeup, and custom jewelry to choreography, lighting, and, of course, visual effects. Anything that will add to the mood of the story is piled into the frame, and the result is vibrant and explosive, challenging notions that style must be compromised for narrative. His visual leanings are perhaps best exemplified by the music videos he’s created, and he relishes this type of collaboration. But he also bristles at its limits at times, complaining that “in the fashion, commercial and music video world, style is priority, often at the expense of substance.”

从造型、妆容、定制首饰到编舞、照明和视觉效果，Andrew 对每一个视觉细节都严格把关。让所有营造故事氛围的元素交叠于同一幅画面中，造就了爆炸式、惊艳的视觉体验。同时，这些画面正在向传统的固有观念发起冲击：视觉不必让位于叙事。他所创作的音乐 MV 很好地诠释了他的视觉倾向，他喜欢这种合作方式，但同时又抱怨道：“在创作时装、广告和音乐 MV 时，风格往往是优先事项，并常常以牺牲概念性作为代价。”

Due to his reputation, people often expect maximalist visuals, a sensory onslaught of images. His more subtle works have received mixed reactions from those clutching the purse strings, much to his dismay. “Mixed media and visual effects mean that my films are inherently expensive, which is frustrating sometimes,” he says. “I wish I could be one of those people that could just make a film with a camera, a script, and an actor, but the bells and whistles of visual storytelling are what I’m known for. Often when I’ve tried more minimal approaches, people look at the work and get confused.”

He thinks the best visual filmmaking requires narrative substance, and with back-to-back crises across the world this past year alone, he’s slowing down to focus on the stories he believes are necessary to tell. His first entry from this new perspective comes in the coming-of-age story of a teen girl told through a dream-like lens of kaleidoscopic colors and vintage styling. He hopes to turn this into a feature-length project. It builds on previous work like the tale of a young man working at his family’s restaurant who meets a deity and embarks on his first gay experience in a mystic otherworld. His piece about a brooklyn flex dancer interacting with a dark, mysterious force might be considered a precursor to both of these.

“Once images go out into the world they can do good or they can inflict harm,” Huang says. “So I think I’ve been more sensitive lately to the cost and consequences of putting work out there. Our time together on this planet is limited and given the tumultuous political and economic environment we’re in, I want to strive for emotional clarity with my work.”

由于他一向以极繁主义的风格著称，导致观众对他天花乱坠的视觉元素产生了期待惯性。相较之下，那些内敛的作品却口碑普通，这让 Andrew 感到十分沮丧。“使用混合媒体和视觉特效就意味着高昂的拍摄成本，这一点会令我焦虑。我希望可以成为一个只用相机、剧本和演员就拍成影片的人。但我一向以华丽的视觉叙事而著称，有时候，当我尝试创作更简单的作品时，人们就会觉得无法理解。”他表示道。

不过 Andrew 也依然认为，叙事对于影片是必不可少的。在过去一年间，随着各种危机在全球接二连三地蔓延，他决定放慢创作脚步，专注于值得讲述的故事上面。期间，他创作过一部关于女孩青春期的故事，作品中充满了梦幻的万花筒色彩和复古风格画面。他希望有机会能将这部作品制作成电影正片的长度。

而在这部影片之前，还有一部关于年轻男子在餐馆工作时发生的故事。男子遇到一位神灵，在神秘的异世界开始了自己的第一次同性恋体验。这部名为《兔儿神》的影片让更多国内人认识了 Andrew。此外，他还拍摄过一位布鲁克林折骨舞舞者与神秘的黑暗力量互动的故事，这部影片可以看作是上述两部作品的前篇。

Andrew 说：“当影片作品公诸于世后，它们可以带来好的影响，也可能造成伤害。所以，我现在会更加小心自己发表的作品所带来的影响和后果。我们存在于地球上的时间是有限的，鉴于我们当前动荡的政治和经济环境，我希望在自己的作品中，传达出清晰明确的情感。”

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Website: www.andrewthomashuang.com
Instagram: @andrewthomashuang
Vimeo: ~/andrewthomashuang

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

网站: www.andrewthomashuang.com
Instagram: @andrewthomashuang
Vimeo: ~/andrewthomashuang

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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No Parties at Noon 正午俱乐部

March 10, 2021 2021年3月10日

《在浪里》150cm x 187.5cm

For young urbanites, nightclubs can often feel like safe havens, a realm of fantasy where space and time are rendered meaningless by pounding bass and strobing lights. All their worries can be left at the door as they escape into a world of drunken hedonism, a moment where they can enjoy themselves to the fullest.

With a similar outlook, Chinese photographer Chen Wei has created Noon Club, a photo series offering his poetic take on the dancefloor. In his work, swathes of vivid colors and enveloping darkness are the backdrops against which club-goers sway to and fro. But strangely enough, the dancers don’t seem particularly excited. In fact, their troubled demeanors and closed eyes suggest their minds seem are elsewhere entirely. “The club is a narrative device,” Chen explains. “Whether it’s a dancer lost in the music, a dirty dancefloor after the people have left, or the expressionless people hiding within the fog—these images express my own complex feelings about life’s realities.”

蹦迪是一件梦幻又残酷的事。俱乐部里，炫彩的灯光混淆这空间和时间的概念，人们跟随强劲的节拍追随心中的幻想；而踏出俱乐部大门，冷酷的现实就又摆在面前，无法适从。大批舞客们连夜追寻的，是脱离现实的都市避难所，是一夜之间的片刻美丽。

中国艺术家陈维的系列作品《正午俱乐部》无疑是献给俱乐部的诗歌，通过极富色彩和空间感的视觉语言，对俱乐部中的所有事物一一描绘。然而，画面中灯光下的人们却又无精打采，好像每个人都有说不出的心事，漫无目的地散落在舞池中间。他说道：“俱乐部是一个叙事的壳，无论作品中表现的陶醉于舞蹈的状态、散场后凌乱不堪舞池、还是那些烟雾里面无表情的人们，都包含着我自己面对现实的复杂感受。”

《在浪里》150cm x 187.5cm

Through his artful snapshots of clubs and club-goers, Chen delivers a sobering vision of modern life: he believes that today’s world has been stripped of happiness, with mass commercialization and digitization being the main culprits behind our joyless existence. His work distills this bleak outlook into a visual format.

With so many people in search of a place to vent their frustrations and anxieties, clubs have perhaps best filled that need. These spaces represent a subversion of the norm, a middle finger to the unspoken guidelines that have long dictated how life should be lived, a place that can’t be replaced by the digital world.

Chen sees nightclubs as society in miniature. People from all walks of life gather in these places, all with their own goals and expectations for the night. These different individuals have all come together under the promise of a good time, but a sense of unease often simmers beneath the surface. While Noon Club offers glimpses this restless energy, Chen reveals that the images weren’t even taken in real clubs. For “In the Waves,” he invited over a dozen young creatives to take part in the shoot, which was completely staged inside a studio. Without even any background music, the models were instructed to party their hearts out within the blinding lights and enveloping fog. The dancers can be seen in varying states: some are fully into it, some aren’t even dressed for the occasion, and others look downright lost. Chen seems keen on speaking a simple truth— even when partying, it’s not completely possible to shed the weight of reality.

影像记录骗不了人，陈维所要传达的内容的确不怎么开心。在他看来，现代人都迫于网络或是商业的劫持，生活变的更加病态。人们需要一个场所来宣泄情绪，需要通过面对面沟通来获得慰藉。而地下俱乐部能代表反叛与抗议，又是人群聚集的场所，是一个再合适不过的选择。

俱乐部像个小社会，这里鱼龙混杂，每个人内心对当晚的期盼都有所不同。而他们却因为相同的场地和氛围而聚集于此，每一个单独的个体都难以抗拒随音乐摇摆的人群。这样的想法促使陈维完成了《正午俱乐部》系列，来探讨并映射现实中随波逐流的我们。

该系列中所有布景和灯光并非取自真实的俱乐部场景。整个创作过程发生在一个影棚里，陈维邀请了数十位年轻人参与其中，指导他们在毫无音乐的背景下，用舞蹈完成一次放飞自我。幻蓝和幽黄的灯光与烟雾缭绕的人造氛围下，“舞客们” 的形态涣散、眼神空洞，一些人想竭尽全力沉浸在自己的世界、一些人甚至还身着上班的通勤服，丝毫没有俱乐部本应该有的快乐。这不仅让我们思考：即便身处梦幻的角落，也难以卸下现实的枷锁。

《漂浮》100cm x 75cm

Connecting a thread between club culture and modern society, the series offers different perspectives of a night out. Images include wide shots of crowded dancefloors, close-ups of individual party-goers and their sweat-soaked clothing, and even interior shots of empty clubs. Each scene, though greatly different in nature, all capture the anxieties, struggles, and loneliness of the modern Chinese youth in their own way. As the dancers sway and gyrate, they almost seem desperate, as if the right combination of moves can placate their emotions.

《正午俱乐部》系列始于 2013 年。“正午” 和 “俱乐部” 是两个对立的概念。通常，很少有俱乐部会在正午开放。陈维说：“我们通常把夜晚用来蹦迪，所以中午便可以坐下来谈论俱乐部。” 这种概念，让俱乐部成为话题，让思考贯穿于他的摄影作品中。

整个系列包含了俱乐部的方方面面，除了舞池人群的宏观视角之外，陈维还对俱乐部空间、人物全身和局部动作、灯管、皮衣等事物进行特写。那些破败不堪的俱乐部内饰、破旧的装置、变形怪异的动作、汗流浃背的背影，这些七零八落的身体动作，好像都在影射人们的内心——我们苦苦挣扎，或许就是为了抵达内心的幻想境地。

《舞池（蓝）》180cm x 225cm

《舞池（碎）》180cm x 225cm

《舞池（金）》180cm x 225cm

《舞池（珠）》180cm x 225cm

Prior to photography, Chen created lighting and installation art. This background offers him unique insight in photography, especially with regards to spatiality, materiality, and how light can help evoke a specific mood. For Noon Club, Chen and his team designed everything from the ground up. “Shooting a photo requires a lot of preparation,” he explains. “From the early concept, set design, discussion, set construction, and execution—it takes a tremendous amount of time.”

In the four shots of Dancefloor, Chen Wei themes each image around different props and lighting. In Dance Hall (Pearls), disco balls of varying sizes populate the dancefloor, an unseen light source out of the frame illuminates the dancefloor with warm tones. In Dance Hall (Blueness), purples, cyans, and azures engulf the dilapidated space. Without any human subjects, his set design and lighting setup became the primary story drivers. “Without light, we’re blind, unable to see the manmade or the natural world,” he says. “Light is the prerequisite for visibility, and it’s also the starting point of my work.”

His preferred presentation format, ink-jet prints, gives his images a grainier feel and heightens the vibrant colors to surreal levels. Plenty of care also goes into every offline showing, with Chen deeply involved in how his works are lit or framed in gallery settings.

早在摄影之前，陈维曾从事灯光和装置艺术领域，这让他对空间、材质和灯光有着独到的理解。在《正午俱乐部》每一幅照片开始拍摄之前，陈维和团队都需要在电脑上进行大量的设计工作。他说：“我的照片需要做很多前期准备，从方案草图、设计、讨论，到与建材工人对接、执行制作，都需要耗费大量的时间。”

在《舞池》作品中，陈维分别以 “金”、“碎”、“蓝”、“珠” 等字眼命名舞池的不同状态，呈现了创作中不同材质的运用。这些材质在缤纷的灯光下，与整个俱乐部环境相映成趣，让画面变得立体感十足。当谈论到作品中的灯光运用时，陈维说道：“没有光我们就看不见东西，不论自然还是人造，它们是可视的前提。也是我的工作的起点。”

而在拍摄完成之后，陈维通常会对作品进行喷墨打印的处理，让作品呈现出更具颗粒感、色彩鲜艳的特点，增添了不少超现实的意味。与此同时，作品在现场展出时也别具考究，陈维通过对现场灯光和布置的处理，让作品与展厅彼此呼应。作品的颜色和空间感夺“框”而出，体现地淋漓尽致。

《断裂之柱》150cm x 187.5cm

《的士高》75cm x 60cm

《的士高》60cm x 75cm

《的士高》48cm x 60cm

Ultimately, Chen hopes viewers can keep an open mind when looking at his work. “Clubs are places of uncertainty,” he says. “They’re places of volatile emotions, endless stories, and it’s all too difficult to express accurately using words. That’s why I chose photography.”

Later this month, Chen Wei will host a new solo exhibition titled Good Night at HOW Art Museum. See below for details.

Exhibition:
Good Night

Dates:
March 27th, 2021～June 11th, 2021

Address:
Hao Art Gallery (Third Floor)
Zuchongzhi Rd., Lane 2277, #1
Shanghai, Pudong District
People’s Republic of China

对于作品的解读，陈维希望观众保持开放的态度。他说：“因为俱乐部总有太多不确定性，有太多情绪、太多故事会在这里发生，用只言片语很难准确的表达。这也是为什么我选择用摄影来呈现的原因。” 马上的三月，陈维将在上海昊美术馆三楼展厅举办小型个人展览《陈维 Good Night》。

展览:
《Good Night》

时间:
2021年3月27日～2021年6月11日

地址:
昊美术馆（上海）三楼展厅
上海浦东祖冲之路2277弄1号

《入口》100cm x 125cm

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Website: www.chen-wei.org
Instagram: @chenweichenwei
Weibo: ~/chenweistudio

Contributor: Pete Zhang

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

网站: www.chen-wei.org
Instagram: @chenweichenwei
微博: ~/chenweistudio

供稿人: Pete Zhang

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The Claymen 泥土也有情绪

March 8, 2021 2021年3月8日

In the sculptures of Amen Khanna, simple beiges, tans, and whites are used to powerful effect. The Indian artist’s porcelain figures come with rich emotional inner lives, despite their whimsical demeanors—some of his characters have their eyes shut in fear, some have their mouths agape in shock, and others have hands clasped tightly around their heads. Even in works designed to be functional, there’s a pensive grace that he injects into the work. Through his clay creations, Khanna hopes to shine a light on the negative emotions that people too often push out of sight.

平实淡然的色彩，却带有一种让人沉静的能量贯穿其中，一枚枚特立独行的小人仿佛各自拥有各自的小情绪，却又让人觉得饶有趣味。有些人闭起眼长大嘴巴，似乎是对眼前发生的一切感到讶异；有些人紧紧抱住头，似乎陷入了焦头烂额的困境中……哪怕是一些水杯花盆，也好似承载着一丝静默的忧伤——印度艺术家 Amen Khanna 说，他创作的这些陶土作品的初衷，就是“为了呈现那些人类看不见的情绪”。

The first time that Khanna touched clay, something clicked—he found a tremendous amount of beauty in the material. He admired its sturdiness, malleability, adhesiveness, and that, even without additional colorants, it came in naturally pleasing colorways. Once realizing that these qualities could be used to create unique, expressive works, he became obsessed.

Amen 在一次偶然接触陶土制作之后就爱上了这种媒介，他发现陶土本身具有着独特的美学价值。它实在、可塑、有粘力，且自带沉寂的色彩——这些与生俱来的物理性质让人着迷。而如何捕捉陶土的特性，去塑造一个个不同性格气质的作品，则是 Amen 一直想要去探索的命题。

Considering the versatility of clay, Khanna believes it’s a shame that people overlook their full potential. The material is often thought of as nothing more than a medium to construct functional ceramic ware. But Amen sees clay for what it is or can be—a material with life. Under his touch, his ceramic men express puzzlement, astonishment, sorrow, and more. “The thought that the material comes from the earth and will return to be a part of it one day keeps me grounded,” he says.

虽然说陶土的形态可以万变，但人们对它的看法似乎永远跳不出其本身的实用意义，所以大多数陶土制品都沦为了锅碗瓢盆。可是 Amen 并不这么认为。在他眼里，陶土是有生命的，这些小泥人们仿佛会惊讶、迷惑、忧虑、沉思，它们所呈现的神态是丰富多样的，但有着表里如一的核心：真诚。“一想到它来自于大地，总有一天会成为大地的一部分，我就觉得很踏实。”Amen 说。

Ceramics as a medium is prone to damage and cracks, and this is precisely what makes each of Khanna’s clay men so delicate and unique. In this way, they’re similar to human beings—needing to be constantly reshaped and cared for. This belief is what elevates his porcelain art and adds emotional dimensionality. He also believes the nature of clay adds a universality to his art, one that allows him to transcend gender, geography, and politics. He says, “Simply put, my clay men are the language and voice with which I communicate my thoughts and feelings with the world.”

这些陶土人在制作过程中总会不可避免地面临损坏和龟裂，但这也体现出每一件泥人的弥足珍贵，它们几乎和人类一样，需要一次次塑形，需要一枚枚真心呵护。唯有这样才能让观者关注和感知到更多情感信息，而非物质本身的实用主义。对 Amen 来说，泥土从来都不只是一种简单的媒介，他希望塑造的是一枚枚超越性别、地理、政治界限的泥人，“它们是我的语言和声音，我用它们与世界交流我的思想和感受。” Amen 说道。