Monthly Archives: July 2022

Traces of Change 中国 1961：过去和现在

July 28, 2022 2022年7月28日

Sometimes items of exceptional historical value sit unregarded under our noses. One day, when Jakob Moritz Becker was helping his grandmother declutter her house, they stumbled across something remarkable: a collection of about 300 photographs of China taken by her father and his great-grandfather Horst Köntopp during a trip to the country in 1961. Becker already knew about this collection as a kid and had already seen some photographs, but it was only later, when facing the decision of whether they should keep or discard them, that he realized the value of what they had in their hands.

The photographs were all in color slide film and showed city and country life scenes in different provinces of China. Featuring landscape, architecture, fashion, and a fascinating human presence, they provide a rare glimpse into what life was like across the country in the early 1960s. Not just that: Köntopp’s slide photographs turned out to be the oldest sizable collection of color photographs of China known to date. Becker’s fascination with his discovery was such that, in early 2021, he published Traces of Change, a photo book with almost the entire original collection alongside photographs taken by himself on many trips to China more than half a century later as he traced his great-grandfather’s steps.

你可曾想象，近在眼前、稀松平常之物，可能具有特殊的历史价值？德国人 Jakob Moritz Becker 某天帮祖母整理房子时，突然发现一堆宝物：那是他父亲和曾祖父 Horst Köntopp 在 1961 年访问中国时拍摄的大约 300 张照片。其实 Jakob 小时候就知道这些照片的存在，还看过其中一部分，然而儿时的他并不能理解照片背后的价值。直到后来成年后，家人一度思考是否要把这些照片处理时，他才猛然间意识到，曾祖父留下的这些作品，是多么宝贵。

这些胶片摄影拍摄于中国不同省份，记录下不同城市和乡村的生活景象，其中不仅包含景观、建筑，更有生动的人物肖像以及那个年代的着装。中国上世纪六十年代初各地生活的摄影作品本身就极为罕见；而更值得一提的是，Horst 的这些胶片摄影，乃迄今为止已知最早的大型中国主题彩色摄影作品集之列。Jakob 深深着迷于这些照片，2021 年初，一部名为《你好，中国》（Traces of Change）的摄影集发行于世——书中囊括了 Jakob 曾祖父所拍的几乎全部作品，还收录了半个多世纪后，Jakob 多次前往中国追寻曾祖父足迹时拍摄的影像。

Becker’s first trip to China had nothing to do with his great-grandfather or the book. It happened before the discovery at his grandmother’s house. Trained as a civil engineer, he used to sing in the choir of the Berlin State Opera in his spare time and went to China for the first time in 2015 to attend choir festivals hosted in the cities of Shanghai and Nanjing. “The atmosphere in China back then was relaxed, everything was open, and everybody was very welcoming,” he recalls. “People from all over the world went to these festivals. It was like a big global classroom, with different groups enjoying and celebrating the beauty of art. It was a magical atmosphere.” 

China left a positive impression on Becker. Back in Berlin, he began learning Chinese, already planning to return. Therefore, when he watched the photographic slides with his grandmother, they had gained a more personal value, beyond their historical importance.

The first thing he noticed was their excellent condition and photographic quality. Since they were kept in small slide frames, protected with glass on both sides, most pictures were practically undamaged, with no scratches or specks. Also, Köntopp went to China equipped with the best there was in photographic gear at the time, an Exakta Varex IIa 35mm camera and several Carl Zeiss Jena lenses, which contributed to the excellent results. “My impression of these photos is that they have a certain old charm, very different from photos today. It’s something that comes out naturally with these old lenses and colors,” Becker says.

Jakob 是土木工程出身，曾业余在柏林国家歌剧院合唱团演唱。2015 年，他第一次踏上中国，是去上海和南京参加合唱团汇演。那时的他还并没有留意到曾祖父的照片，但这次旅行为他留下了特殊印象。Jakob 回忆道：“中国的气氛很轻松，一切都很开放，每个人都很友好；来自世界各地不同文化背景的人们齐聚一堂，共享艺术之美。那种氛围真是奇妙。”

第一次中国行给 Jakob 留下了极好的印象。回到柏林后，他开始学习中文，并计划再次返往中国。也正是缘于对中国的情愫，当后来他和祖母一起浏览曾祖父的摄影作品时，他产生了一种对照片本身历史价值之外的更深感知，这也促使他开启了进一步研究。

关于相片，Jakob 首先注意到的，是相片近乎完美的保存状态。每幅作品都保存在小型胶片框中，两边都有玻璃保护，大多数照片几乎没有损坏，也没有划痕或斑点。他还发现，照片的摄影水准极高，这可能得益于曾祖父当时的爱克山泰相机（Exakta Varex IIa 35mm），这台相机是当时最好的摄影装备，同时配备数枚东蔡镜头（Carl Zeiss Jena），共同造就了作品的不凡呈现。Jakob 说：“这些照片有一种特有的古早魅力，与今天的照片非常不同，它们在老式镜头和色彩的加持下，呈现出更加自然、亲近的效果。”

Born in 1920, Köntopp lived through very tumultuous times in Germany. As a young adult, he served in the Second World War, in the Army Medical Service, and was imprisoned after it ended. He then returned home to what later became East Berlin and continued his medical studies to be a doctor. Köntopp was also a photo enthusiast. He shot in black and white and in color, developing the film at home in his own dark room. He even photographed for a few health periodicals as a freelance photographer. As a doctor, Köntopp helped rebuild the medical system that had collapsed during the war. His specialization was in vaccinations and social hygiene. 

In 1961, along with two other doctors, Köntopp was invited on an exchange trip to China to meet Chinese doctors, visit hospitals, and observe local hygiene habits. “He didn’t take many pictures of his workplaces, but you can notice that some photos have a connection because whenever he saw something that had to do with hygiene in the street, he would take a picture. This is the only relationship I can see between his pictures and what he was doing there,” Becker says.

​Jakob 的曾祖父 Horst 出生于 1920 年，曾经历过德国动荡和战乱。成年不久后，他参加第二次世界大战，服役于陆军医疗单位。二战结束后，他被一度监禁。之后，他回到东柏林，完成了医学学业，选择成为一名医生，专业领域是疫苗接种和社会卫生。在从医生涯中，Horst 参与重建了德国战后崩溃的医疗系统。摄影是 Horst 业余的热衷，他拍摄黑白和彩色照片，在自家的暗房里冲洗，他还以自由摄影师身份为几家健康刊物摄影。

1961 年，Horst 和另外两名医生应邀前往中国进行交流，他们会见中国医生，参观医院，观察当地卫生条件。Jakob 说：“虽然曾祖父没有拍过很多医疗场所的照片，但从一些照片中，不难发现与医学的关联。每当他在街上看到与卫生有关的事物，他都会随手拍下。这是唯一的线索，能让我从照片中了解到他所从事的行业。”

Köntopp’s trip happened in January and February, only months before the Berlin Wall went up. Even though East Germans still enjoyed relative freedom to travel abroad, including to Western European countries, they would more commonly travel to other countries in the Eastern Bloc of Europe. Their currency wasn’t strong nor convertible, making it very difficult to travel elsewhere—a trip somewhere as far as China was a farfetched idea, something extraordinary. The journey wasn’t easy. Köntopp and the two other doctors went by train to Moscow, where they took a plane to Tianjin with a stopover in Mongolia.

The group landed in China during the period of the Great Leap Forward, an economic plan with the goal of accelerating the transformation of the country from an agrarian society into an industrial powerhouse. However, the program had inverse and tragic effects, damaging and shrinking the Chinese economy. The worst happened in the countryside, where a combination of human errors, misleading crop reports, and natural catastrophes caused an unprecedented famine that killed tens of millions of people, the Great Chinese Famine.

Horst 的中国访问是在 1961 年 1 月 和 2 月，也就是柏林墙竖起的几个月前。当时，东德人仍然享有出国旅行自由，可以前往西欧国家，但大多数东德人选择东欧集团国家作为旅行目的地。这是因为东德的货币在当时并不坚挺，不能自由兑换，让国外旅行变得举步维艰。而前往中国这样遥远的东方国度，更是难以想象的。也因如此，Horst 的中国行并不轻松，他和另外两名医生先是乘火车到莫斯科，然后又坐飞机去天津，中途还有在外蒙古短暂停留。

Horst 的那次中国行正值大跃进时期。这是一项经济计划政策，旨在加快中国从农业社会向工业强国的转型。然而，该计划产生了反作用和悲剧性影响，不仅打击了中国经济，更使其不增反降。农村的情况最为糟糕，在人为失误、误导性的农作物报告和自然灾害的共同催化下，一场前所未有的饥荒降临，造成数千万人丧生，酿成 “三年大饥荒” 的悲剧。

Although none of this is self-evident in Köntopp photos, a closer look reveals hints of the bigger picture. “We have to distinguish between the cities and the rural landscape. If you see photos of the cities, you don’t feel a great famine is going on. The cities still received food from the countryside,” Becker says, explaining that, as history shows, rural communes reported faux harvest numbers, painting a positive picture, not to lose the favor of government administrators. Based on these misleading reports, large parts of their stock were sent to cities on a redistribution scheme. After that, when the rural communes reported truthfully that they could no longer provide high amounts, they were accused of hiding stock, which often led to food being taken forcefully. That meant that little, sometimes nothing, would be left for the rural population to eat.

“In one picture taken in the country, we see a group of children working in the field without the presence of any adults. They, too, had to ensure the harvest was properly done,” Becker says. “Knowing this context, it’s interesting to see these photos where these three German scientists are sitting in a hotel having a rich dinner with all kinds of food. It was not something common at this time,” he adds, highlighting the contrast between the harsh conditions in the countryside and city life.

Still, as Becker remarks, even in the cities, there were obvious hints of shortages. For instance, in one picture, we can see dozens of people queueing in front of a shop selling coal, which shows that even basic materials and goods weren’t available in abundance.

这段历史在 Horst 的照片中并没有直接体现，但仔细观察，不难发现痕迹。Jakob 解释说：“当把城市和乡村照片的分开来看——从城市角度，你看不出大饥荒正在发生，这是因为当时城市仍有来自乡村的粮食供给，” 据历史记载，农村公社为了能持续获得政府官员们的青睐，虚假上报农作物产量，描绘了一幅粮产丰足的盛景。于是，根据再分配计划，农村的大部分粮食都被征收送往城市。而之后，当农村公社迫不得已只能如实汇报他们无法再提供粮食的状况时，政府却断定农村谎报，并采取强行征粮的措施，最终导致农村人口几乎没有余粮的情况发生。

​Jakob 以一张照片为例并解释道，“照片里，一群孩子在田间作业。在没有任何成人看护的情况下，孩子们必须确保收割工作达标。而同时期另一张照片中，三位德国科学家坐在酒店中，正享用丰盛的晚餐，” 他强调，这样的晚餐在当时并不常见，农村的艰苦和城市的丰足之间的对比可见一斑。

然而，即使是在城市，也有明显的物资短缺迹象。Jakob 展示了另一张照片，几十人在一家煤炭店门口排成长队。这表明即使是在城里，基本物资和商品也曾出现过供不应求的现象。

Even though the circumstances were harsh, Köntopp’s impressions of people in China were positive. Becker learned from his grandmother that he found Chinese people friendly, calm, and remarkably honest. “My great-grandfather always said that once he had forgotten a tie on a train in China, and he was sure that if he were to go back there, he would still find the tie in the same seat he was because no one would have taken it,” Becker laughs. Köntopp’s trust in Chinese people went as far as his field of expertise, medicine. During the trip, Köntopp felt intense tooth pain, but he didn’t know any dentists in China. His solution was to try Chinese acupuncture, which was still very unorthodox, to say the least, for the Western mentality then.

Indeed, Köntopp’s respect for the Chinese people comes across in the portraits he took. He photographed people of all ages candidly. In one particular shot, he captured a group of young boys, probably around seven or eight years old, gathered around an improvised ping-pong table. They seemed to have made the table to fit their small stature. Also, they ingeniously improvised the net out of a combination of lined bricks. In another shot, Köntopp portrays a group of little girls, about the same age as the boys, playing a game of jump rope. They seemed to have noticed him taking the photo because some of them threw intrigued gazes at the camera and opened smiles.

“I find these portraits remarkable. Today, we’re always hesitant to take photos of people, especially in a different country, but I think my great-grandfather was not afraid. The atmosphere must have been different back then because not everybody was running around with a camera. This was something new, a sort of a privilege,” Becker says.

One thing that catches the eye in particular in Köntopp’s photos is the clothes people wear. We see no traces of European fashion or even more stylish Chinese pieces such as the qipao, and not yet an abundance of Mao suits that became popular in the following years. Instead, there’s a predominance of modest and untailored tang style jackets, baggy pants, and cloth slip-on shoes, all worn by men and women, even in the biggest cities.

尽管条件艰苦，但那次中国行却给 Horst 留下许多积极的印象。祖母曾告诉 Jakob，在曾祖父心中，中国人友好、冷静，而且非常诚实。Jakob 笑着说：“我的曾祖父总会谈起，一次他在中国火车上忘拿领带的经历，他坚信，如果他回去找，领带一定还放在原处，因为没人会拿。” Horst 对中国人民的信任甚至延伸到了医疗领域。访问期间，Horst 某天突发剧烈牙痛，可他在中国不认识牙医，于是果断尝试传统的针灸疗法。而在当时许多西方人眼里，针灸并非正规疗法，其往往被冠以偏见。

Horst 对中国人民的喜爱与好奇心，还体现在他拍摄的人物肖像中。他抓拍了各个年龄段的人群。其中一幅照片中，他捕捉了一群大约七八岁大的男孩，他们围在一张临时搭建的乒乓球桌旁。球桌很低，仿佛是为孩子们量身定做。男孩们机智地把地上的砖头排成一排，当作乒乓球桌上的分割线；另一个镜头中，Horst 捕捉到一群正在跳绳七八岁女孩，她们似乎注意到了镜头，纷纷对着相机投来好奇的目光，露出天真的笑脸。

Jakob 说：“时至今日，这些照片依然能给人留下深刻印象。如今，尤其身在异国他乡，当摄影师给陌生人拍照时，总是顾虑重重。但曾祖父当年并没有太过顾虑。诚然，当时的氛围肯定与现在不同，那时候可不是人人都能带着相机到处跑，相机在当时是一种特权般的新事物。”

在 Horst 的照片中，还有一点格外引人注目，那就是人的穿着。照片中没有出现欧洲的时尚痕迹，也没有旗袍之类的中国服装，就连后来数年里大热的中山装，也没有出现。相反，大部分人都穿着朴素，未经剪裁的唐风夹克、军大衣、宽松的裤子和棉质布鞋——无论男女老少，无论城镇还是乡下。

Beyond fashion, the mood in Köntopp’s photos seemed modest and, paradoxically, more idyllic. As Becker notices, even when the architecture was preserved, the aura of most places has changed drastically from those times. “Architecture-wise, some of these places he visited look much like they do today. But they feel completely different because they are so crowded today,” he says, showing a photo of the Long Corridor at the Summer Palace in Beijing taken by his great-grandfather. The corridor is uncrowded, with only a few people strolling. But then Becker compares this shot with a recent photo he took of the same corridor overcrowded with people in guided group tours. “This is what fascinated me. My great-grandfather’s photos show the China we all imagine, a peaceful, harmonious, and spiritual place,” he says.

Horst 在拍摄中采用的色调朴素至简，甚至带有某种田园诗意。Jakob 留意到，即便当时的一些建筑被保存至今，但大多数气质已发生了明显的戏剧性变化。他说：“我后来前往过一些照片的拍摄地，那里的建筑和当初比起来没有太大变化，但氛围早已截然两样——很多地方车水马龙，热闹非凡。”在一张 Horst 拍摄照片中，北京颐和园长廊里散步的人寥寥无几，而在 Jakob 近年内拍摄的照片中，同一条走廊里排满了导游团。Jakob 说：“曾祖父的照片展示了一个与我们想象中吻合的中国，一处和平的、和谐的精神家园。这是让我着迷的地方。”

As he studied the photos, Becker wondered if he could find some of the less obvious places his great-grandfather had photographed. Since Köntopp didn’t leave a proper travel journal behind, Becker would have to rely on the images themselves and clues his great-grandfather left in them for guidance. Köntopp had scribbled notes and succinct descriptions in many of the pictures; sometimes, these scribbles revealed the name of the city or area where he shot them; sometimes, they were vague, just simple keywords, like “in the hotel,” for instance. Besides, not all of them were legible, especially considering how intricate handwriting was in the past. And there was yet another complicating factor: Köntopp had used the now obsolete German names given to those places. 

To Becker, decoding these clues was a discovery process in itself. His investigation of his great-grandfather’s journey began in Germany. He researched online, on Google and Baidu, and, to his surprise, he found many of the places he was looking for with a simple research. When the difficulty level increased, he asked friends and people he knew in China for help. In the following years, Becker visited China for various reasons. He took the chance to stir his travels within the country towards the places his great-grandfather had been sixty years before.

在研究曾祖父的照片时，Jakob 想试试看能否找到以前曾祖父拍摄过的一些不太被人知道的地方。由于曾祖父的相册并没有留下像样的旅行日志，Jakob 不得不循着照片本身、和照片上的线索来寻找。许多照片上都有潦草和简洁的笔述，有些是关于城市和地名、有些则语焉不详，只是简单的关键词，比如“在酒店”等等之类的备注。此外，并不是所有的字迹都清晰可辨，当年曾祖父的手写字迹潦草难辨。还有一个因素让 Jakob 的探寻之路难上加难：一些地名依然是当年的德文标注，如今已不再使用。

解码这些线索对 Jakob 来说，是另一次探索。研究之初，Jakob 还在德国，他于谷歌和百度上搜索。令人惊讶的是，仅是简单的搜索，却让他一下子找对了许多地方。对于那些没那么容易搜到的地方，他便向中国友人和熟人寻求帮助。在接下来的几年里，Jakob 因各种缘由到访中国，并借机去曾祖父六十年前去过的地方寻迹。

Still, finding cities and locations didn’t mean the job was done. Becker needed to find the exact spots Köntopp stood to photograph. Some were easy. “Memorials, parks, and gardens didn’t change much. Like the Summer Palace; it didn’t change at all. Maybe the colors became a bit more bright and catchy, but the structure and architecture remain the same,” Becker says.

Some spots, however, were much harder to locate. “Hutongs and other places where people lived in old houses have changed a lot. These were often in the city centers. If you look at the city center of Beijing, it’s full of new modern buildings now. A lot of this old architecture was seen as outdated and replaced,” Becker says.

To locate some places that had changed radically, and some that were simply too hidden, Becker used an interesting approach: he tapped into the memory of the elderly. “I would show pictures to the elderly in the streets and ask them if they knew these places. They really remembered places and promptly started giving me directions. I would follow them, and sometimes, suddenly, I would find the exact location I was looking for,” he says.

找到具体的地点并不意味着任务的告终，Jakob 还需要找到曾祖父当年拍摄的确切角度和方位。有些位置找起来很容易，比如纪念馆、公园和花园，这里和从前没有太大变化。“像颐和园就一点都没变”，他说，“也许颜色变得更加明亮，但建筑结构没怎么变。”

然而有些位置就很难找得多，比如胡同，和其他老式居民楼。“这些地方往往都位于市中心，变化巨大，” Jakob 说，“你看今天的北京市中心，到处都是新建的高楼大厦。人们认为老建筑过时了，所以很多就都被拆除了。”

为了找到发生巨变的地方，以及那些隐蔽于城市的角落， Jakob 采用了一套有趣的方法，那就是去找当地的老人聊聊：“我会把照片给街上老人看，询问他们是否认识这些地方，”他说，“一些老人还记得，他们会立刻为我带路。有时还真一下子就找到了。”

Other times, Becker would find nothing of what he was looking for, even if he were in the right place. Some landscapes had changed almost entirely, and he had to look for clues in the photographs that he could identify, like a stream of water or a small bridge, to ensure he was in the right place. Wherever he went, he would try to capture the same angle his great-grandfather did. That wasn’t easy either: sometimes new additions to the landscape had obstructed the view or made it impossible for him to stand in the same place Köntopp did in the past. 

Unsurprisingly, some places proved impossible to find. Some spots had changed entirely. Whatever was visible in Köntopp’s photos had utterly vanished to open space for large modern buildings or massive infrastructure projects. “I could only find the places that have changed to a certain degree. But many places changed so much that I had no way of recognizing them. I will never be able to find them—probably nobody will.”

Contrastingly, some things remain the same. A few times, Becker found places where even the lifestyle seemed untouched by time. “With the car, I had more flexibility to go wherever I wanted, so I drove to some remote areas in Sichuan where you can still find life intact and original,” he says. However, he realizes it’s a matter of time until things change. Even in such places, there are hints of modernization, and they usually appear with tourism. “Sadly, most people will sacrifice tradition and culture for the money that comes with mass tourism.”

无论 Jakob 走到哪里，他都会习惯性地还原曾祖父的拍摄角度。这个过程并不顺利。即便找对了地方，也不能保证找得到确切位置。有些景观几乎完全变了模样，他不得不用照片里的线索来进行比对，比如一条小溪、一座小桥，以确认位置的准确性有多少。然而，有些地方建了新的景观，或阻碍视线，或阻挡路线，已然不可能走到曾祖父当年的拍摄位置了。

一些地方甚至消失得无影无踪，取而代之的，是大型现代建筑或大型基础设施项目。Jakob 说：“一些地方也许会发生变化，但终究可以找到。而变化太大的地方，我无法辨认，无论换作谁去找，可能都不会再找到了。”

相比之下，有些东西则几十年如一日。那里的生活依然如旧，仿佛没有受到任何时代的影响。Jakob 说：“我开车走访了许多地方，去了四川的一些偏远地带。在那里，我找到了旧日影像里的生活。”但他也知道，这样的状态不会持续太久，因为即便在这样的地方，也有现代化的迹象，通常都是被当地旅游业带起来的。他接着说：“大多数人会选择牺牲传统和文化来换取大众旅游带来的收入，这很令人惋惜。​”

Becker noticed that in cities, some of the old buildings had their facades stripped of the original ornaments that decorated them, like Chinese texts, dragon images, and friezes. These buildings gained a more practical and unaffected appearance. The most noticeable change, however, was in street life. The book has pictures of 1961 showing people playing games on the sidewalk, reading, hanging their clothes to dry in public, and practicing qigong in the streets and parks. Scenes that you can still see in today’s China but that are getting increasingly rare due to the changes in lifestyle and the results of the gentrification of traditional neighborhoods.

“In the pictures of 1961, the streets were alive, full of people. If you analyze them, you have the impression of a functional social system,” he says, showing a photo of a lively street with many people coming and going on foot, bicycles, and rickshaws. A young man is pulling a cart filled with sacks in the back, and there’s an overall sense of how social the street was back then.

In the book, Becker juxtaposed this picture with a recent shot of the same street. We can immediately notice the emptiness: only a few scooters are racing by, and now there’s a pedestrian crossing, a Family Mart shop, and a pharmacy. The ornaments in one of the buildings are gone, and another building disappeared completely, possibly to open space for a wider road. “It’s a matter of perspective,” Becker says. “If you could ask the people back then, they would probably love what it looks like today: clean, functional, and people having enough money to buy things and eat. At the same time, in our position today, we look back at them and feel this dreaminess of the good old times. We can see the history that has been removed, and now it’s gone.”

此外，Jakob 还发现其他一些变化，例如，城里一些老建筑正上方的牌匾，如汉字、龙的造型和带状浮雕之类的装饰，统统不见踪影。少了雕饰的建筑，平添了几分实用和普世性。最明显的，是街头生活的变化，1961 年的照片里，人们常在人行道上嬉耍、阅读，还有的人在公共场所晾衣，在街道、公园里练气功。现如今，尽管这类场景在中国仍然可以看到，但缘于生活方式的巨大转变和社区现代化，这样的景象越来越少见。​取而代之的，是跳广场舞的大妈、和整齐化一的街道。

他说：“1961年，街上到处是人，生机勃勃。倘若把这些照片综合起来看，你会感受一个完善的人文社会体系。”他随即翻开一张照片，上面是一条热闹的街，有很多行人，自行车和人力车来来往往，其中一个年轻人拉着一辆装满麻袋的推车，整体传递出一种生机和活力。

在《你好，中国》这部摄影集里，与上述这张照片并列的，是 Jakob 近年在同一条街拍下的作品，一段人行横道、一家全家便利店和一家药店，几辆电瓶车飞驰而过，显得很空旷；曾经的建筑装饰没了踪影，有的栋建筑也许是为了扩宽道路而被彻底拆掉。Jakob 说，“每个人的视角大不一样。今天的我，作为一个德国人，回望另一个国家的过往，感受到的更多是梦幻般美好旧时光；但如果你问当时的人们，他们可能更喜欢如今这里的生活：干净、便利，有足够钱来购买食物和商品。照片里，我们看到了一段被移除的历史，一段再也回不去的旧时岁月。”

Traces of Change is organized into two parts and subdivided into many chapters. The first part shows only Köntopp’s photographs; the second is the re-photography part, where Becker combines the past and the present. Each chapter corresponds to a stop in Köntopp’s journey. Inspired by the poetic character of the photos, Becker opens them with a traditional Chinese poem connected to the local atmosphere.

Even though the textual elements only appear minimally in the book as an introduction to Köntopp’s trip, captions, and the poems mentioned above, Becker had to invest time in researching background information and translating the text, including the poems, to English, German, and Chinese. It was something he wouldn’t be able to do without the help of his father, his girlfriend, and other collaborators. The processes were fairly complex, mainly because of the number of photographs he included in the book, almost the entire colored collection, except for a few duplicates.

Köntopp’s entire photo collection, however, was even more extensive. Becker’s grandmother told him there was also a series of black and white photographs he took in China with another camera, but they had disappeared with time. Had they been around, they would likely make it to this book, or perhaps another one. Becker is eager to protect and share every visual material he can with the broader public. “I wanted to leave nothing out,” he says. “Even though some of these pictures might not look special, they might be relevant to some people. They will see details that you and I won’t. Altogether, these pictures help construct an understanding of the time” he says.

Köntopp’s pictures of China provide precisely this. They are rare missing pieces that help us assemble a better understanding of Chinese society at the beginning of a pivotal period for the country. But they do so in a unique way, distinguishable from the usual scenes of despair or ideological fierceness that dominate the imagery available from the time. They’re more humane and perhaps even more meaningful, taken by an amicable traveler who was genuinely curious about the country in a seemingly apolitical manner. Together with Becker’s recent photographs, they form a window not just to reinterpret how Chinese people lived in the past but where they (and we) stand today.

《你好，中国》分为两大部分，每一部分细分为多个章节。第一部分，展示的是曾祖父 Horst 当年的摄影；第二部分，则是 Jakob 自己近年的拍摄，在这个部分中，他还将过去和现在的照片并列展示。其中每个章节，都与当年 Horst 在旅程中的每一站相对应。受老照片中怀旧情绪的启发，Jakob 特意给每章开头都配上一首诗，诗的内容恰好引出章节里照片上出现的人物和场景特点。

在摄影集为数不多的文字里，你会看到 Horst 中国之旅的介绍、作品说明以及诗歌。字虽少，但 Jakob 却花很多时间进行斟酌。​并在父亲、女友和其他合作者的帮助下，将书中文字翻译成了英文、德文和中文。制作影集的过程相当复杂，主要是因为照片的数量过大，其中除了少数复制品，几乎所有的彩色照片都被收录进册。

不过，Horst 的摄影作品数量远不止这些。据祖母说，Horst 在中国时还用另一台相机，且拍了一系列黑白照片。然而随着时光流逝，这些照片却怎么也找不到了。如果这些照片还在，可能也会收录进现在这部摄影集里，或出版成另一部作品。Jakob 对这些宝贵的视觉影像有着强烈的保护欲，更带着与世人分享的愿望。他说：“我想毫无保留地分享这些作品。尽管有些照片看起来并不十分特别，但兴许它们会和某些特定人群产生共鸣，也许，总有人就能发掘你我关注不到的细节。总之，这些照片将帮助我们构建起对那个时代的理解。”

确实，当我们想深入探索中国那个特殊时期，Horst 的摄影作品能为我们填补一部分罕见的空缺。这些作品的表现方式如此独特，平静、和睦的生活之气，和当时占主导的绝望情绪、激烈的意识形态争辩，形成鲜明对比。作为一位友好的旅行者，Horst 以一种无关政治的姿态，真诚地展示他对这个国家的好奇心，也因此，他的作品更具人文关怀，更有深意。这些老照片，与 Jakob 近年的新作一道，为我们开启了一扇富有诗意的窗，连通着中国的过去与现在。

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Website: www.tracesofchange.de
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Contributor: Tomas Pinheiro
Chinese Translation: Yang Young

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供稿人: Tomas Pinheiro
英译中: Yang Young

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Sarcastic Inflection 创作，是用来驱散恶魔的方式

July 26, 2022 2022年7月26日

A lady with horns clutches a pillow and cries, but instead of tears, flowers flow from her eyes. Across the image, text that reads  “Sorry, I’m recovering from self-sabotage” is superimposed in sign-painting style. In a separate piece, a girl holding a cat casually smokes a cigarette as half of her body melts away. Overlaid across her is text that simply reads “Hell Here.” These eye-catching images are the work of Raizel Go, a Filipina illustrator and painter who combines a pop-art aesthetic with horror influences and an healthy helping of sarcasm.

Despite growing up in Manila, Go draws plenty of inspiration from Western art, whether it be skateboard art by Jim Phillips of Santa Cruz fame or the aesthetics of traditional American tattoo pin-up girls. The influence that these disparate styles has on her are evident throughout her artwork today.

一位头上长着恶魔角的女子抱枕啜泣，鲜花化作泪水从双眼流淌而出。画面上，一行手工招牌绘写风格文字格外醒目：“Sorry, I’m recovering from self-sabotage”（抱歉，我正从自我毁灭中慢慢恢复）。另一幅作品中，怀里抱猫的女子正吞云吐雾，只见她侧半边身体已被腐蚀，“Hell Here”（地狱在此）的字样掠过整幅画面。这些作品均出自菲律宾插画家和画家 Raizel Go 的手笔，她的作品往往糅合波普与恐怖片元素，某种难以言传的讽刺之意恰如其分地融入进作品中。

Raizel 在马尼拉长大，但青少年时期的她便深受西方文化的影响。譬如艺术家 Jim Phillips 为 Santa Cruz 设计的滑板艺术，以及传统美国纹身艺术中出现的性感女郎图案。从她现在的作品中，你仍然可以清晰看到这些不同艺术风格的痕迹。

For a decade, Go worked in advertising, pushing her personal creative desires to the side.  When the pandemic hit, she thought she would have more time for art since she was working from home, but the line between work and life blurred as it did for so many, and she ended up logging even more hours for her ad firm. “I got really burnt out and wasn’t in my best mental state,” she says. “I had no time to draw or paint. It was like I was wasting my time doing things I don’t really like, and I wasn’t getting any younger.”

The frustration reached a boiling point, and she decided to leave her job and focus on her personal work. To make ends meet, she also takes on freelance illustration and graphic designer gigs, and the liberty this decision has afforded her has allowed her art to flourish.

Raizel 曾在广告行业打拼十年之久，在这期间，她按捺住自己个人的创作欲望。疫情居家时期，她原以为自己会有更多时间投身于艺术创作，结果她和很多人一样，发现工作与生活的界限反而变得模糊不清，最终自己在公司工作投入的时间比以前还要多。她说：“我当时真的感觉非常疲惫，精神状态也不太好。我完全没时间去画画，感觉自己就是在浪费时间做着自己不喜欢的事情，而时间就这样一天天过去。”

当沮丧的情绪堆积至极点时，她毅然决定辞职，专注于个人创作。为了维持生计，她还会接一些插画和平面设计工作，而这个决定，让她有了足够的自由去发展自己的艺术。

The progress in Go’s work was immediate. She still works with the same motifs as years past, one defined by strong female figures, pop culture references, and a touch of horror. But her art is now much more detailed and consistent. She’s also honed in on a stylistic direction of her own, with works that are difficult to differentiate whether it’s digital or painted by hand.

而 Raizel 在创作的进步上也立竿见影。她延续过去一贯的创作风格：抢眼醒目的女性形象、流行文化以及恐怖片氛围，这些元素都在她的作品中愈发显眼。她承认，相比以前，现在的作品风格会更细致、更连贯。除此之外，她个人独有的艺术风格也进一步显现，让观众难以区分作品究竟是手绘还是电脑绘图。

Go doesn’t flinch when dealing with tense subject matter, frequently referencing alcohol abuse, mental health issues, and a deep misanthropy. These heavy themes are counterbalanced through her use of bright colors and incorporation of humor and self-deprecating sarcasm. Go sees these works as a way to express herself to the fullest extent, outlets for her to make peace with bad memories or negative emotions that’ve stuck with her throughout the years. Each canvas is a place where her inner demons can be exorcized to and remade into something less haunting. “I filter everything through my art now, it’s a better way to deal with certain realities of everyday life,” she says. “I still have inner demons that I battle every day, but I try to channel it into a more proactive approach, which all goes into my work.”

Raizel 现在也会创作一些更具有严肃话题的作品，譬如酗酒、心理健康和厌世问题。在处理这些沉重的话题时，她会用鲜艳色彩以及幽默和自嘲式的讽刺来稍作调和。她想透过这些作品，发泄多年来一直困扰她的不愉快和负面情绪。每一幅画布上的创作，成为她驱除内心恶魔的过程，并被她重新转化作更为积极的内容。“我通过自己的艺术作品来过滤一切，对我来说，这是处理生活中一些现实的更好方式，”她说，“我现在依然每天都要对抗自己内心的恶魔，但我在努力将其转化为正向的能量，并在作品中体现这一切。”

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Instagram: @goraisehell

 

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

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Instagram: @goraisehell

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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Objects in Motion 转出生活的惊喜

July 21, 2022 2022年7月21日
Mo Chung Fights The Tiger 《武松打虎》

The interests that captivated our childhood imagination may seem a bit trivial nowadays. Most of our waking moments as adults are spent within the routines and humdrum of the rat race. This isn’t quite the case for Yu Chenrui, a Chengdu-born artist.

For as long as he can remember, Yu has loved getting involved with hands-on creative activities. As a kid, he’d even pluck loose strands off of the straw mats at home and reassemble them into the likeness of various animals. In school, he was captivated by arts and crafts classes where he cemented his love for handmade knickknacks. This affinity for handicraft stuck around into his college years, where he stumbled upon automatons—mechanical objects that can operate with relative independence once set in motion. In all of China, there are probably less than ten artisans dabbling with these kinetic objects. Even outside of the Middle Kingdom though, it’s not a particularly popular medium.

按部就班的人生，总有少数人能将童年的兴趣一直延续下来，对于 92 年出生的成都人俞宸睿来说，这门兴趣便是手工。他小时候就是个善于动手的孩子，从凉席上扯下的席草编织成直立的动物，到手工课上班里的活跃分子，凭借想象力与无处安放的双手自制关于童年的乐趣。长大后，他依然坚持这份与生俱来的创造力，并选择了一份极其冷门的职业：机巧装置（Automata）。据他所说，这门手艺的职业匠人在全国不超过十位，哪怕放眼全球，知名艺术家也屈指可数。而他本人，或许是成都唯一可以称得上是机巧装置艺术家的人。

 

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Forbidden Fruit Plate detail 《禁果盛放器》细节图
Forbidden Fruit Plate detail 《禁果盛放器》细节图

Items such as mechanical watches, crankshaft musical boxes, or wind-up toys are probably the most commonly known automatons. But this mechanical craft stretches much farther back in history, with mentions in Greek mythology and even a period of renewed interest during the Renaissance. Early iterations of cuckoo clocks, mechanized fountains, and clockwork puppets have captivated the imagination of people throughout the decades. The evolution of these mechanical objects are a testament to human ingenuity, and in a way, markers of technological progress. Today, many of these earlier mechanical designs reside only in museums, and only a niche few remain interested in creating automata.

提到机巧装置、或是机关人偶，你或许能在生活中联想到古早的钟表、八音盒以及吓人玩具等等。但其实这是一门古老的艺术，通过机械传动原理，让“角色”运转，使情景展开。古往今来，机巧装置在世界东西方都有不同程度的发展。在古希腊的很多故事里，就有关于雕像会动的描述、欧洲文艺复兴和巴洛克时代，各式各样的机械钟上的小人、恶作剧喷泉等等装置层出不穷、以及曾在日本江户时代风靡一时的机关人偶等等，这些都展现人类对于机械装置的崇拜和幻想，映证技术与思维的进步。表面是关于机械原理、机械之美，而一个个齿轮和连杆又转动了多少生活的趣味，是理性与感性的结合。现在，许多机巧装置被存放于博物馆中，论起制作——已属于一个十分小众的领域。

Tofu Counter 《豆腐计数器》
Tofu Counter detail 《豆腐计数器》细节图

In 2015, Yu was studying graphic design at the Communication University of China. At an elective woodworking course, he learned about the existence of automatons and was hooked. The lack of Chinese-language resources on the craft meant a lot of trial and error, as well as online research on Western sites. He even decided that his thesis paper would be dedicated towards the lesser-recognized craft. A background in motion graphic design meant that he had a better understanding of the expressive capabilities of movement, which still applies to the primarily wooden material he now works with. Since 2015, he’s created more than sixty pieces of original automata.

俞宸睿第一次接触这门艺术是在 2015 年，当时他正在中国传媒大学攻读平面设计专业。一次木工选修课程的课后调研，让他与机巧装置结缘。兴趣使然，他很快投入尝试。由于国内在这方面教育资源稀缺，一切全凭他无师自通。他于网络翻看大量作品和视频资料，将所能查到的统统收入囊中。两年后，俞宸睿以他对机巧装置的研究作为论文课题，伴随知识的梳理和掌握，这段经历对他日后的创作提供了极大的帮助。虽是动态图形设计专业出身，但他承认动画与机巧装置的一脉相通，“动画的背景让我更好地表达出生动的动作，只是现在创作动画的媒介变成了木头装置而已，”他说道。从 2015 年到现在，他已创作了六十余件机巧装置作品。

 

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Two Cows Fell in Love detail 《对牛谈情》细节图
To Observe the Autumn 《秋天观察》
The New Year of Buffalo 《贺岁的牛》

Most of Yu’s works are either based on myths or the minutia of everyday life. For example, Tofu Counter, a piece inspired by a traditional tofu shop right next to his studio. The piece replicates traditional tofu making process with fidelity, and at the bottom of it is a person with their mouth wide open, ready to gobble up a piece of delicious tofu. 

A newer piece, titled Forbidden Fruit Plate, is based on the story of Adam and Eve. As the crank is turned, the two characters take turns reaching out toward the apple as they take furtive glances towards one another. It’s unclear whether they’re too shy to hold hands or are tempted to take a bite of the apple for themselves. It’s left open-ended, up for viewers to decide for themselves.

Humor is essential to his automatons. He believes that eliciting a laugh is the best way for audiences to connect with his work. “I believe that life is ultimately made up of a string of seemingly trivial things,” he says. “Some things may seem boring at first glance, but it’s still a part of life, and I enjoy taking it all in.” 

The ability to set aside time for soaking in and appreciating life’s trivialities is perhaps something embedded in Chengdu’s way of life. Yu believes the city has been tremendously influential to his creative endeavors, and there’s nothing he enjoys more than strolling through the streets and seeing what the surroundings to offer. “Whether it’s the city or nature, I love Chengdu for its laidback vibes,” he says. “It helps me stay relaxed, and when I’m relaxed, it’s much easier to pepper my work with a dose of humor.”

俞宸睿的作品大都没有宏观的叙事，反倒是从生活中细碎的感悟和观察、或是流传于民间短小精悍的典故中得来。例如作品《豆腐计数器》，其灵感来源于俞宸睿工作室旁边的一家传统豆腐磨坊，他在创作中保留了对传统豆腐制作流程的记录，以此来表达对这门工艺的致敬；而这类手工豆腐价格通常高出普通豆腐，作品中加入的计数器装置来表达一种精打细算的生活态度，上方显示的数字“12”则表示他在豆腐店一次充值可购买的次数。他今年完成的作品《禁果盛放器》，则取材自亚当和夏娃的故事，随着装置的转动，两位角色向彼此伸出双手，随之旋转的还有头顶的“禁果”；是牵手成功，还是偷吃并承担后果，他将一个开放式话题留给观众。

这种冷笑话、幽默的方式在俞宸睿的每一幅作品中体现，他渴望通过这些作品与观众进行互动，“我始终相信，我们真实的生活就是由这些琐碎事物组合而成。有些在旁人眼中或许是百无聊赖，但这就是生活，我喜欢观察这些，” 他说道。从生活中来，到生活中去，这样的创作理念恐怕在与成都这座城市“自由散漫”的性格彼此呼应。闲暇之余，俞宸睿最爱在城市里游荡，而灵感往往也正是在此刻发生。他说：“我喜欢穿梭在市井、城市和自然，舒服的生活节奏让我更容易放松，放松就能多讲点冷笑话在作品里。”

 

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Mr Frog's Magic detail 《青蛙的魔法》细节图
Mr Frog's Magic detail 《青蛙的魔法》细节图

Creating one of these mechanical constructs can be incredibly tedious and time consuming. A lot of focus is required in seeing it through from start to end. Plenty of time is spent on experimentation and adjustments. From ideation, to early sketches, structural design, carving, coloring, and assembly, no single step of the process is more important or less important than the rest. It can take anywhere from a week to several months to fully complete an automaton. In assembly, Yu even employs mortise and tenon, a traditional Chinese carpentry and architectural technique in which components would be conjoined with interlocking fit and no additional fasteners.

而机巧装置的制作过程则容不得半点散漫，在俞宸睿看来，这类创作往往是一个漫长且枯燥的过程，需要反复调校和试错。从想法、草图、结构制作、雕刻、上色、再到组装，每一个环节都不容忽视。仔细观看这些作品的构造，你会发现中国传统木工艺术中榫卯工艺的运用；而从角色和动作的设计来看，还散发着早期上海美术电影制片厂的味道。这些都需要精心打磨。

Fantasies About Carrot 《胡萝卜幻想》
Fantasies About Carrot detail 《胡萝卜幻想》细节图

Ji qiao is a unique Chinese term that can be roughly translated as “mechanical ingenuity,” and its coinage can be traced back to the Warring States period. Yu believes this is the most apt way to describe his work—these methods of animating his designs isn’t something that can be replaced by modern methods of automation. “This ‘ingenuity’ is related to the maker’s emotional commitment, expressive intent, and design thinking, but it’s also the joy brought about through the creation process, the juxtaposition between the inanimate state and its dynamic state, plus all the surprises the artisan may hide within the piece.

Yu mostly works with cherry wood, seeing it as a material that can withstand, and even evolve, with the effects of time. “An automaton is a time capsule, and cherry wood will oxidize and change color with the passage of time—the longer the piece lasts, the deeper the color of the wood becomes.”

有时候，一幅作品的创作周期小到一周大到几个月。这其中，俞宸睿最看重装置中“机巧”概念的塑造，通俗一点，便是赋予机械生命。因此，普通的机械原理显然是行不通的。他解释说：“机巧装置玩得就是‘巧劲儿’，其包含了创作者对作品的情感投入、个人表达和巧妙设计，同时也包含原始结构带来的意外之喜。作品静止和动态带来的强烈反差、作者暗藏在时间轴的惊喜，这些都是机巧的体现。” 为了表达“时间”这个概念，他在创作中有自己的木材使用偏好，“机巧装置是时间的匣子，而樱桃木会随着时间的流逝，氧化变色，时间越长颜色越深红有韵味，”他说道。

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Fantasies about the Fireplace 《壁炉遐想》
Fantasies about the Fireplace 《壁炉遐想》

For Yu, his creative process and everyday life go hand in hand. Through his creations, he’s found that an appreciation towards the whimsies of life through a new perspective. In fact, the moving gears of his automatons can be seen as a metaphor for life—it’s self-powered, sometimes perhaps moving a bit too fast, but once slowed down a bit, the details are breathtaking. It’s a philosophy that’s left an impact on him. “Slow is the new fast,” he says. “Creating an automaton is tedious work, but even if there is a new piece that I really want to finish I’ll take my time to iron out every detail to the fullest extent. That way, it not only meets my  personal standards, but is able to stand the test of time. To me, life is the same, I believe that if you live each day to the fullest and keep an open mind to all it has to offer, you won’t live with any regrets.”

从生活到创作，再从作品为生活平添的那份惊喜，俞宸睿的机巧装置是生活与创作的双向奔赴，让观众猛然间放下戒备，沉浸当下的快乐。当时光渐渐流失，生活中的趣味却从未褪色，这些都随他的作品保留下来。对于他来说，生活就像是装置中的齿轮，好像永远不会停歇，但转得太快，容易错过许多美丽风景，慢下来反而更能留意到更多细节。这些年的创作，让俞宸睿对于生活也有了新的感悟，他说道：“慢就是快，机巧装置的创作过程是繁复的，即便有很想要完成的新作品，还是要慢慢进行，照顾处理好每细节，这样组合成的作品才能打动自己和经受得住时间的考验。生活也是一样，过好每一天，这个月就不会太差。”

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Weibo: @chenrui_yu
Instagram: @yuchenrui_automata

 

Contributor: Pete Zhang

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微博: @chenrui_yu
Instagram: @yuchenrui_automata

 

供稿人: Pete Zhang

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Urban Missives 荒郊野“鸦”

July 19, 2022 2022年7月19日

Along the side of a typically wide throughway on the outskirts of Bangkok, a burst of pastel pink glows from within a field of shoulder-high green grass. It’s a nearly-demolished, single-story building with two gaping holes in its front wall that resemble a pair of wild eyes. Smoke from a smoldering pile of grass clippings at its entry keeps the mosquitos at bay for now. This is where Dropfib has chosen to paint his latest piece of guerrilla art. Inside one of the bare rooms, the Thai street artist is busy at work painting his signature character, a portly figure with twig arms and legs and a missing neck. The character stands on his tippy toes, reaching up high to paint a message in Thai for any passerby who might happen to spot him. 

在曼谷郊区的宽阔路边，穿过齐肩高的青草丛，隐约可见几抹柔淡的粉色墙壁。一处破败的单层建筑立现眼前，墙上的两个大洞，张开令人可怖的双眼。旁边一堆草屑正在燃烧，暂时驱赶荒郊蚊虫的肆虐。泰国街头艺术家 Dropfib 正在这荒废的房间里创作他标志性的人物 —— 一个大腹便便、四肢瘦长的角色，他踮起脚尖，手指腾空做出喷漆的姿势，为所有可能无意间过路的人，留下醒目的讯息。

Dropfib has been making street art since 2015, consistently plugging away with the same motif, mainly only switching up his colors and the written message with each piece. The 25-year-old artist grew up in Ubon Ratchathani, a city in the northeast region of Isan, and first had the idea to paint in the streets at the young age of 14. “We used to come to Bangkok every summer, and I’d always look for street art as we passed through,” he says.

Dropfib 从 2015 年开始创作街头艺术，但这些年过去，却始终围绕相同的主题创作，最多也只会改变颜色和作品文字。这位 25 岁的艺术家在泰北伊桑地区的乌汶市长大，14 岁时就萌生了在街头作画的想法，他说：“我们以前每年夏天都会来曼谷，每次来的时候，我都会特意去留意当地有趣的街头艺术。”

Although Dropfib loves character-driven street art, he had the idea to incorporate text into his work early on—or more specifically, he wanted to depict one of his characters spray painting the wall. Nobody else was doing it in Thailand, so he figured it was an opportunity. Artists like Barry Mcgee, also known as Twist, alongside collaborator Amaze, had already done similar work in the US, and Brazilian twins Os Gemeos had also been painting their own idea with the same theme. But Dropfib wanted to paint something specifically for Thai people.

Dropfib 喜欢围绕角色来进行创作，但很早以前，他便希望尝试在作品中加入更多文字元素。他的角色往往做出涂鸦创作的姿势。在美国，Barry Mcgee（又名 Twist）及其合作艺术家 Amaze 有过类似的作品；巴西双胞胎艺术家组合 Os Gemeos 也一直按照相同的形式绘画。但在泰国，还没有类似的作品出现，他觉得这是一个机会。

The messages Dropfib writes cover everything from politics to love, anything that might speak to the locals that they’re intended for. When dealing with political messages he obscures the meaning by keeping his message plausibly vague to avoid getting in trouble. In a rare English-language painting, a character drawn in the likeness of a virus paints “COVID ALL CITY,” a sardonic take on how graffiti writers will brag about getting up in every part of a city. Occasionally he’ll paint quick throwies or simple pieces as well. “Mostly I just want to make people smile. Make people happy,” he says. And it seems to be working, considering that his Facebook page has nearly 50,000 followers.

Dropfib 作品的文字信息涵盖了政治、爱情等方方面面，与当地生活文化息息相关。在进行政治类文字的创作时，为了避免麻烦，他会刻意含糊其词。在他的一幅罕有的英文作品中，他用新冠病毒的造型对角色加以修饰，并写下文字“COVID ALL CITY”，以讽刺某些涂鸦艺术家吹嘘自己占领了城市每一个角落的言论。Dropfib 偶尔也会创作一些快速、简易的作品，“很多时候，我只是想让人们会心一笑”。如今，他的 Facebook 页面有近 50,000 名粉丝，在圈内获得了许多其他涂鸦艺术家的认可与支持。

Dropfib mostly seeks out abandoned places to paint, spaces where no one will stop him or bother him. Especially walls that no one else has painted yet. But these types of places are not without their own troubles. One time he was painting and a groundskeeper stopped him and contacted the building’s owner to find out how to deal with the situation. Luckily, the owner enjoyed Dropfib’s artwork, and he was allowed to finish his painting. Another time, a drug dealer came up and tapped him on the shoulder asking, “When will you be done? I need to work and can’t until you leave.” He was allowed to quickly finish that one up as well.

废墟，是 Dropfib 经常光顾的地方。在这里，他不会被人打扰，有很多尚未被其他涂鸦艺术家创作过的墙壁。但意外也时有发生，有一次他被场地管理员拦住，并联系大楼主人说要严肃处理。幸运的是，大楼主人很喜欢 Dropfib 的作品，也同意让他继续完成他的涂鸦。还有一次，甚至毒贩找上门来，他上前拍了拍他的肩膀，问道：“你什么时候画完？我要工作，你不走的话，我没办法开工。”最后对方催促他赶紧画完了那幅作品。

While Dropfib is happy to busy himself with raw walls like these, he’s also open to working on large-scale, commissioned pieces when chances arise. In fact, he’s now working for a department store in Bangkok as a full-time mural painter. Despite finding ways to profit from his passion, he’s not overly concerned with chasing after money: “I’m not thinking much about the future right now,” he says. “I’m just finding my way and living in the present. I’m living in the moment.”

在荒地之外，Dropfib 也乐于接受客户委托的大幅作品。他目前还在一家曼谷百货公司担任全职壁画师。尽管兴趣变成了职业，但钱并不是他最关心的事情，他说：“我对未来没有太多想法。我只是在走自己的路，专注于此时此刻，活在当下。”

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Instagram: @dropfib
Facebook: ~/dropfib

 

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Photographer: Kanrapee Chokpaiboon
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li
Additional Images Courtesy of Dropfib

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

Instagram: @dropfib
Facebook: ~/dropfib

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
摄影师: Kanrapee Chokpaiboon
英译中: Olivia Li
附加图片由 Dropfib 提供

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Night Bus 奇情夜车

July 14, 2022 2022年7月14日

 

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Strangers on a bus. Each of them has a secret. Like the best Hitchcockian stories, they all have skeletons in their closets, and once a necklace is stolen in the dead of night, the chain of events that begins to unravel feels unstoppable, like falling dominoes. Viewers are taken on a ride directly into the dark abyss of human nature. This is Night Bus, a 20-minute horror short by Taiwanese director Joe Hsieh that made its way around film fest circuits in early 2022.

Night Bus is Hsieh’s third short film, a follow up to 2006’s Meat Days and 2014’s The Present, and it extends the themes of his earlier work to make this ride into the personal hells of its riders something truly memorable. Along with making deep impressions, the film is also winning awards—at Sundance, Night Bus granted him  the Short Film Jury Award for best animation.

公交车上的陌生人都心怀鬼胎，每个人都有不为人知的一面，像极了经典的希区柯克式悬疑。夜深时分，一条被盗项链，使故事急转直下，并发生一连串令人惊愕又注定发生的事件，也最终让这趟公交车坠入人性的黑暗深渊——这是台湾导演谢文明创作的20分钟恐怖短片。该短片在今年年初多个电影节中备受瞩目。

《夜车》是谢文明继 2006 年的《肉蛾天》和 2014 年的《礼物》后创作的第三部短片。该短片进一步拓展了他早期作品的主题，以车上乘客地狱般的旅途展开一段令人难忘的故事。在圣丹斯电影节上，《夜车》获得了最佳动画短片评审团奖。

The premise of Night Bus is a simple one, but the story’s twists and turns may catch people by surprise. A mother monkey is shown swinging from the trees, with her baby clutching on. Viewers are then taken inside of a dingy bus station where two silhouetted lovers are embracing as the wind rages outside. Two soot-faced workers smoke outside, waiting for the bus’s arrival. Someone is shown on their knees, peeking beneath a bathroom stall in the station—a second later a man and a woman come out of the bathroom and walk outside towards the bus, which has finally arrived. “Hurry, get on board,” says the driver. “Last bus of the day.”

《夜车》的故事设定通俗易懂，但之后剧情的发展却令人毛骨悚然。影片开端，母猴穿梭于树林，与怀中的猴宝宝享受石榴的美味。随后，画面转到一个破败不堪的公交车站，一对情人的身影在相拥，门外狂风大作；两个蓬头垢面的工人在室外抽烟等车；某个鬼鬼祟祟的人正趴跪在女厕地板，朝某个隔间内窥探着什么。过了一会儿，一男一女从厕所走出。公交车，到了。“快上车，”司机说道，“这是今天最后一班车。”

An old lady and a mysterious man in a button-up shirt are the final two characters making their way onto the bus. She demands help with her luggage while complaining about having to take the rickety bus due to her car being in the shop. Once on board, the title flashes onto the screen, and a gloomy, dreamlike score by Ned Young plays out. These beginning two minutes sets the tone of the film, introducing the characters before they get onto their fateful bus ride, and before their secrets are revealed.

As the bus drives through the night, most of the passengers fall asleep, but in the the old lady wakes up, noticing that her pearl necklace has been stolen.  This singular event becomes a catalyst for the series of distressing events that engrains this nightmarish ride into the audience’s memory.

最后上车的两人，是一位老太太和她身后穿着纽扣衬衫的年轻男子。老太一边吆喝他人帮忙提行李，一边抱怨因为自己的车在店里而不得不乘坐这辆破旧的公车。当所有乘客上车后，影片的标题闪现在屏幕上，由 Ned Young 创作的阴郁、迷幻情绪配乐缓缓响起。短片开头的两分钟，便奠定了整部影片的基调，分别介绍角色与故事行进的场景，埋下诸多伏笔。

公交车行驶在狂风之夜，此时大多数乘客都已昏昏入睡，突然，老太太从睡梦中发现自己的珍珠项链被盗。这个意外如同催化剂，触发了一系列恐怖事件的发生，揭开了一趟如噩梦般的旅程。

Night Bus, like Joe Hsieh’s earlier short films, is easily identifiable by its aesthetic. Hsieh primarily uses the “cut-out” technique in the crafting and production of his shorts. “Sketching is my favorite way to create cut-out animations,” he says. “I start out sketching my characters with pencil, then scan into the computer for coloring, edits and body/facial movements. I am always looking for new ways to improve my skill to make the movement more smooth and graceful.”

《夜车》和谢文明早期的短片一样，拥有独特美学风格。谢文明在制作短片时主要使用拼贴剪纸风格（cut-out）动画，他说：“制作剪纸动画时喜欢用素描绘法，会先用铅笔绘画角色并扫描到电脑，然后进行上色、编辑和完成身体、面部动作。我也一直在尝试新的方式，能让角色的动作变得更加流畅且自然。”

There are a few moments in Night Bus that can be described as shocking. With Hsieh’s work, shock factor is an important factor to the story, with the mood and atmosphere culling inspiration from  horror manga stories by the likes of Junji Ito.

“I do like horror manga and love Junji Ito’s works too,” remarks Hsieh. “In fact, I’m most inspired by live action suspense films. As a big fan of Hitchcock, I also love Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds and Rear Window. I love the way the characters in the film put the audience in their shoes, deep in suspense.”

In Night Bus, Hsieh wanted to replicate that same sense of suspense, and the film’s plot unveils itself like some of the bleakest film noir. “To reveal who stole the old lady’s necklace is only secondary and a step to revealing the hidden secrets of the rest of the characters—the real point of the story. I was also very much inspired by strong female characters in other horror films or thrillers, like Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs.”

《夜车》中不乏令人颤栗的画面。在谢文明的作品中，惊悚是重要元素，论影片情绪和氛围的灵感，则主要来自伊藤润二等人的恐怖漫画故事和悬疑片。

“我喜欢恐怖漫画，也很喜欢伊藤润二的作品，”谢文明说，“但我的灵感更多是来自真人悬疑片。我是希区柯克的铁粉，尤其是《惊魂记》、《迷魂记》、《群鸟》和《后窗》。电影中那些引人入胜的角色，总能让观众内心充满悬念。”

谢文明希望《夜车》表现出相似的悬念感，整部短片的情节如同黑色侦探电影一样逐步铺开。“揭露偷走老太太项链的人只是次要，更重要的是揭晓角色背后隐藏的秘密，成为整个故事的焦点。此外，恐怖电影或惊悚片中强大的女性角色也给了我很多灵感，比如《沉默的羔羊》中的朱迪·福斯特（Jodie Foster）。”

The pace of Night Bus is another reason for its hypnotizing power. The animation style,  unraveling plot, and ominous music builds towards those shocking reveals and a devastating climax. According to Hsieh, the pacing of animation is very important, especially for horror stories. “For me, the pacing is always important for the development of the plot, and it changes by the emotions of the characters in the film.”

Additionally, the score in Night Bus goes a long way in cultivating the sense of mystery. “I spoke with my composer at a very early stage, around when I was writing my proposal,” says Hsieh. ”During production, we had very close and regular discussions. I explained to him every character in every scene to ensure he came up with a dramatic score. I believe in his work and since we have collaborated for many years, he understands me and my style very well. He even gave me advice for my stories.”

《夜车》的节奏也是这部短片如此扣人心弦的另一个原因。动画风格、解谜般的情节和充满不祥感的配乐，慢慢揭开真相的面纱，并最终达至毁灭性的高潮。谢文明表示，动画的节奏非常重要，尤其是恐怖故事片，“在我看来，节奏在剧情发展中起到关键作用，并随着影片角色的情绪而转变。”

此外，《夜车》的配乐对于营造影片的悬疑氛围功不可没。谢文明说：“我从很早的阶段，大概从写提案时就开始与配乐的作曲家讨论。整个创作过程中，我们始终保持密切地沟通。我会向他解释每个场景里的每个角色，以确保创作出充满戏剧性的配乐。我很信任他的作品，我们已经合作多年，他非常了解我和我的风格，甚至会给我提供一些关于剧情方面的建议。”

All in all, Night Bus is a bitter story designed to leave viewers with a sour taste in their mouths. This bus ride is, in a way, society in miniature—showing the rich pitting the lower class against one another, a disregard for mother nature, the tendency for selfishness, and how thin the line between love and hate can really be. When it gets to its fiery climax, only the innocent characters survive, and the audience is left pondering about how one decision can lead to a chain effect of unforeseen consequences. 

总的来说，《夜车》是一个悲伤的故事，观看后，惆怅感油然而生，一些画面还让人历历在目。从某种意义上说，这趟公交车之旅是社会的缩影——揭示了上层富人如何让下层阶级互相残杀，也揭露了人类对大自然的漠视、人的自私以及爱与恨就在一线之间。在影片高潮，公交车熊熊燃烧，只有两位角色活了下来。观众不禁思考，一个很小的决定也许能产生多米诺骨牌效应，甚至引发不可预见的后果。

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Contributor: Ryan Dyer
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

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Contributor: Ryan Dyer
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

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Boss Bitch 对不住了，老妈

July 12, 2022 2022年7月12日

Purple dragons fly around neon green flames and fluorescent yellow smoke, weaving between angels, demons, Buddhas, and even Zeus. At the center of all this is Boss Bitch, a character colored in cherry red and bombastic pink, with lasers exploding from her eyes and a halo floating around her spiked hair. This illustration is a new stage in the work of Thai illustrator Suwimon Numsawad, better known by her artist pseudonym NZYME.

只见在荧光绿火焰和亮黄色烟雾中，紫色龙群翱翔于天使、恶魔、佛陀和宙斯身边。酷女孩“Boss Bitch”位于画面正中，樱桃红和亮眼粉色加饰全身，激光从她的眼中发射，光环悬浮于尖刺发型之上。这幅作品标志着泰国插画家 Suwimon Numsawad（化名 NZYME）在创作上的全新阶段。

这幅插图将 Suwimon 以往和如今的创作风格联通成线。纷繁画面上那个名为 Boss Bitch 的角色，来源于一次她与其他艺术家展开的一场角色创作比赛。比赛中，艺术家们分别创作英雄或大反派来作以创作上的比拼。而她与笔下这位 Boss Bitch 的故事也从那场比赛展开。

Raised in Suphanburi province outside of Bangkok, Numsawad was isolated as an artist. “My hometown doesn’t have any art schools, galleries, or museums, so comics were my art school,” she laughs. Thai comics and Japanese Shonen manga became her earliest entryways into the art world, and she started drawing by imitating their styles. Eventually she went to university to major in animation design, but her original influences are still clear in her style to this day, whether it be the halftone shading, flamboyant characters, comic-panel composition, or the inclusion of bold text. “I think text makes my work more fun and presents a message clearly,” she says. “It also helps add variety to empty space. I prefer English to Thai because it’s not so busy and distracting, but also because it’s the most universal language.”

Suwimon 在曼谷郊外的素攀武里府长大，是当地为数不多的艺术家。她笑着说：“家乡没有任何艺术类院校，更没有画廊和博物馆，我在漫画里学习艺术。”泰国漫画和日本少年漫画（Shonen）成为她早期的艺术启蒙，她通过临摹漫画绘法渐渐接触到画画。后来，她在大学里主修动画设计专业，但漫画对她的影响至今仍清晰可见，譬如丰富的半色调着色、醒目的角色设计、漫画分格和突出的文字元素。她接着说：“文字能让我的作品变得更有趣，同时清晰地传达出信息，为画面上的空白部分铺垫更多可发挥的余地。相比于泰语，英文看上去没那么拥挤和凌乱，而且算是通俗的语言。”

Numsawad’s work often incorporates feminist themes. The 2020 competition she created Boss Bitch for was a “character battle,” where artists challenged each other to create the winning hero (or anti-hero), but it was overwhelmingly comprised of male characters. “I designed her with the concept that ‘God is a woman’ and she has to be kind of badass,” she says.

In a similarly empowering fashion, Sorry Mom riffs off a 1995 interview with American pop singer Cher, who said that when her mom told her to marry a rich man, she replied that she’s a rich man herself. “I think that Santa Claus must be wealthier than any rich man to buy gifts for all the children around the world,” Numsawad says. “So I drew Santa as a badass girl saying, ‘Mom, I am Santa Claus!'”

Suwimon 的作品经常与女权话题联系在一起。2020 年，她带着 Boss Bitch 这个角色参赛时，参赛作品中绝大多数角色还都是男性。她说：“创作灵感来自‘上帝是女人’这句话，我想她一定是个女魔头。”

带有时尚意味的作品《对不住了，老妈》（Sorry Mom），体现了同样的女性赋权主题。其灵感源于 1995 年美国流行歌手 Cher 的一篇采访。Cher 提到，她妈曾表示女儿要嫁给有富人，她却反驳认为自己本身就是个有钱人。Suwimon 接着说：“我觉得圣诞老人肯定比世界上任何人都更有钱，毕竟可以为全世界小孩准备礼物。所以我画了一位很酷的女生版圣诞老人，还附上一句话，‘妈，我自己就是圣诞老人！（我拥有全天下所有礼物）’”

Her Yellow Fever piece carried a similar message, with a woman front and center, staring out at the viewer with a vengeful gaze. It was created as fan art for a music video by local musician Pyra where the rapper verbally eviscerates white men who view her home city as a sex tourist hotspot. Seeing how the video included so many motifs from local Thai culture, it inspired Numsawad to have more confidence in her heritage too. Since then, she’s increasingly been adding elements found across Thailand into her work. She notes that the Web3 community has responded positively to this new artistic direction: “Without NFTs, I don’t know if anyone in my country would have bought my art. Plus, the price isn’t based on the Thai economy, so I get compensated higher.”

她的另一幅作品《黄热》（Yellow Fever）也传达了同样的信息，画面上女主角站在中央，满眼仇恨地凝视着观众。这幅充满女权力量的作品是她为本地歌手 Pyra 的音乐 MV 创作的同人作品，这名说唱歌手讽刺了那些把泰国当作情色旅游基地的白人男性。而 Pyra 的音乐 MV 也激发了 Suwimon 对泰国文化的信心。从那时起，她越来越多地将泰国元素融入到自己的作品中。她的作品在 Web 3.0 时代（中心化、区块链互联网时代）获得了热烈反响：“如果没有 NFT，我怀疑我的作品在泰国根本卖不出去。加上我不需要受限于泰国本地的经济来定价，因此可以获得更多创作上的收益。”

Numsawad had previously added Thai features to her work, but it was a much less frequent affair. A Halloween-themed piece, for example, flipped the US holiday on its head by featuring a medley of malevolent creatures from local myths: “I really like the festival, even though it’s not celebrated in Thailand. So my Halloween characters are all ghosts from Thai folklore.” There’s Phi Krasue, a ghost that removes her head and entrails from her body to float out to eat rotten food and poultry at night. And there’s also Mae Nak, a ghost that died during pregnancy.

Suwimon 在之前的作品中也会加入泰国元素，只是从未如此明显。她笔下的万圣节主题作品，以泰国本土民间传说中的鬼怪，重新演绎这个来自美国的节日：“泰国本地没有这个节日，但我很喜欢万圣节。”这些角色中，有“Phi Krasue”，一只可以把头从身体上摘下来的女鬼，她的头会在晚上四处漂浮，吃各种腐烂的食物和家禽；还有 “Mae Nak”，一只在怀孕期间死亡的鬼魂。

For most of her creative life, Numsawad has been a lone wolf. In university, she befriended a few fellow art students and chatted to some others on Instagram, but these connections were often surface level. With the Thai NFT community in full swing, she says she feels much more connected now. Seeing her efforts and individuality rewarded has given her a newfound confidence. “Everyone’s very supportive of each other, whether they’re an old artist or a new one.” 

在她创作生涯的大部分时间里，Suwimon 一直独来独往。大学里，她结识了几名艺术系学生，也在 Instagram 上与他人建立往来，但这些往往都只是泛泛之交。随着泰国 NFT 圈子的兴起，她感觉当下人与人有了更多连接：“无论是资深艺术家或是艺术新人，彼此之间都能互相支持。”

In addition to creating a welcoming community, NFT sales have freed Numsawad from the limits imposed by clients for graphic design and commission work.  “It’s given me the courage to express myself more, I can be myself and earn money at the same time,” she explains. “My work has become much more detailed because I can put any idea into a piece that I want and there are many people ready to support me. It has allowed my work to reach people around the world.”

除了作为交友社区外，NFT 平台还为 Suwimon 提供了销售渠道，让她得以摆脱创作和客户委托时的外界限制。她解释道：“我更敢于去表达，创作上更随心所欲，同时又能赚到钱。我可以创作更加细致的作品，因为我可以将所有想法都放入作品中，并有很多人支持我。它让我的作品能与世界各地的观众连接。”

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Instagram: @nzyme_xx
Foundation: @NZYMEth

 

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Yang Young

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

Instagram: @nzyme_xx
Foundation: @NZYMEth

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Yang Young

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Vanishing Heritage 失落的传承

July 7, 2022 2022年7月7日
Mickey Polo (2016) Acrylic on canvas 《米奇·波罗》(Mickey Polo, 2016) 布面丙烯

Some 800 years ago, Mongol warrior Genghis Khan united the nomadic tribes of the Mongolian plateau and formed the largest land empire the world has ever seen, the Mongol Empire. Interestingly, the Mongol Empire was mainly composed of nomadic people who, according to the season, moved around carrying their traditional yurts—rounded white tents that could be assembled in roughly two hours—and the livestock that provided them with warm clothes and sustained their mostly dairy-based diet. Even with changes in rulership, civil wars, and the influence of foreign religions, their lifestyle remained unchanged and was passed down through generations. The nomadic culture was still prevalent in Mongolia until the early 20th century, when everything changed.

大约在 800 年前，来自蒙古的武士成吉思汗统一蒙古高原的游牧部落，建立了当时世界上最大的帝国——蒙古帝国。蒙古帝国主要由游牧民族组成，他们往往会根据季节变换，携带蒙古包（圆形的白色帐篷，可在约两个小时内组装好）四处游牧。与之同行的还有他们的牲畜，这些牲畜可为他们提供保暖的衣物，维持他们以乳制品为主的饮食习惯。在此之后，即便受到来自政权更替、内战或是外国宗教的影响，他们始终保持着相同的生活方式，代代相传，游牧文化也一直在蒙古盛行。但这一切从 20 世纪初，开始快速改变。

Social Law (2019) Acrylic on canvas 《社会法则》(Social Law, 2019) 布面丙烯
Lift (2021) Acrylic on canvas 《身心愉悦》(Lift, 2021) 布面丙烯

“We’re losing our heritage at a grand scale that I find heartbreaking. Now Mongolians are following the direction the world is going. In the city, everything is standardized, from apartment buildings to the means of transportation—our traditions and nomadic culture conflict with this modern lifestyle. It’s almost as if heritage is something to be displayed only in a museum,” says Ulaanbaatar-based multimedia artist Baatarzorig Batjargal.

Batjargal expresses his concern with the rapid disappearance of the nomadic culture and other Mongolian traditions through large and colorful paintings, which he populates with a myriad of characters, including animals, historical and religious figures, and pop icons. Each with its own symbology, these figures represent the different forces that defined the complicated recent history of his country. To get to know his characters and the symbology behind them is to understand the history of Mongolia over the past one hundred years.

“蒙古传统文化正急剧消逝，我感到难过。现在的蒙古人正追随着世界发展的步伐。在城市里，从公寓楼到交通工具，一切都在标准化。我们传统和游牧文化与现代生活方式相互冲突，仿佛文化传统只适合摆放在博物馆中展示，”来自乌兰巴托的多媒介艺术家 Baatarzorig Batjargal 说。

Baatarzorig 通过色彩丰富的大幅画作，表达自己对游牧文化以及其他蒙古传统文化正在消逝的担忧，画面中布满各种带有象征意义的动物、历史和宗教人物以及流行偶像，分别代表了影响蒙古近代历史的不同分支。了解其作品中的角色及其背后的象征意义，也是在了解蒙古过去一百年的历史。

New Lord (2017) Acrylic on canvas 《新王登基》(New Lord, 2017) 布面丙烯

Perhaps the most symbolic thing about his work is the style he paints, the Mongol zurag, a folk style that relates intrinsically to Mongolia’s ancient traditions and the culture of the nomadic people. As it’s typical of contemporary zurag, Batjargal’s works can look ancient at first glance. They almost invariably depict Mongolia’s mountainous landscape and show flattened perspectives, traditional patterns, and a rich iconography reminiscent of wall paintings and Tibetan thangkas. We see many shamanic and Buddhist deities, warriors, and the ultimate symbol of mobility for nomadic herders, horses.

However, a closer look reveals seemingly disconnected elements that almost feel like intruders in the scene: frightening mice with Mickey Mouse ears, tie-wearing predators, deities in superhero costumes, astronauts, and famous personalities like the Joker, Freud, Dalí, and Benjamin Franklin. The latter appears in Batjargal’s work exactly as he does in the American hundred-dollar bill.

“If I speak about each element that appears in my works, it will take a long time,” Batjargal laughs. To sum up, he depicts “characters from the past, present, and future, which coexist in a single space. The past comprises myths, rituals, tengerism, shamanism, and wild creatures; the present is represented by characters such as Mickey Mouse, wolfs, and rabbits; and the future is shown with the presence of technology and its advancements,” he explains.

在他的作品中，最具象征意义的莫过于其绘画风格——蒙古祖拉格（zurag）绘画。祖拉格风格来自民间，与蒙古的古老文化传统及游牧民族文化有着千丝万缕的脉络联系。Baatarzorigl 的作品正是当代祖拉格风格的典型代表，乍看之下，传统气息扑鼻而来。他的作品经常以扁平的视角描绘蒙古的山野景观、各种传统图案和丰富的意象，令人想起壁画和西藏唐卡作品。画中描绘了萨满教和佛教神灵、武士、游牧民以及各种马匹。

然而，仔细观察下，你还会发现画中很多看似格格不入的元素，如同场景中的外来入侵者——譬如长着米老鼠耳朵的老鼠、戴着领带的捕食者、穿着超级英雄服装的神灵，以及宇航员、小丑、弗洛伊德、达利和本杰明·富兰克林等名人，其中本杰明·富兰克林更是以百元美钞上的样子出现在 Baatarzorigl 的作品中。

“如果我逐一解释我的作品中出现的每个元素，那估计得花很长的时间，” Baatarzorig 笑着说道。但简单来讲，他描绘了 “关于过去、现在和未来。过去，包括神话、宗教仪式、旅游、萨满教和野生动物；现在，则是米老鼠、狼和兔子等；而未来，则在科技和发展论上体现。”

The Room Itself (2021) Acrylic on canvas 《房间本身》(The Room Itself, 2021) 布面丙烯
Spirit (2021) Acrylic on canvas 《灵魂》(Spirit, 2021) 布面丙烯

Batjargal chose the zurag style because it stems from the same pictorial tradition of old Mongolian paintings, with no limitations of time and space, allowing for a multilayered expression with many perspectives and meanings. He’s part of a movement of Mongolian artists that uses the zurag to express their sentiments of confusion facing the social and political changes the country went through over their lifetimes, notably the problematic transition from communism to capitalism.

Mongol zurag translates literally to “Mongol painting.” It developed at the beginning of the 20th century as a secular art form, marked by the depictions of figures and scenes of daily earthly life. One of the first pieces attributed to the style was One Day In Mongolia, by Baldugiin Sharav, painted between 1911 and 1913. It depicts scenes from a regular day in the mountains of the Gobi Desert. The painting shows the traditions of the nomadic herders while emphasizing the prominence of nature in their lives.

A decade later, the Mongol zurag suffered the consequences of the Mongolian Revolution of 1921 that brought communism to the country under the guidance of the USSR. Since the communist ethos dictated that art production should concentrate on glorifying socialism, there was an effort to suppress anything the Soviets would consider archaic. That’s not to say the art form disappeared; it survived in specific environments, helping underground artists maintain their sense of cultural identity alive.

With the fall of the communist regime and the institution of a democratic system in 1990, a new generation of artists gave a fresh breath of life to the Mongol zurag. By the end of the decade, the style had made its way to academia. It became a proper subject at the Mongolian University of Arts and Culture, where Batjargal studied Fine Arts years later.

祖拉格风格没有时间和空间的限制，可提供多种视角和意义来进行丰富表达。Baatarzorig 与蒙古祖拉格风格艺术家共同发起了一项艺术运动，以表达蒙古社会和政治变革带给他们的困惑情绪，特别是从共产主义到资本主义过渡的这段时期。

祖拉格在蒙古语里的字面意思是“蒙古绘画”，这种绘画风格于 20 世纪初发展成为一种普世艺术，以描绘人物和日常生活场景为特色。风格的最早形式是 Baldugiin Sharav 在 1911 年至 1913 年间创作的《蒙古的一天》（One Day In Mongoli）。画中描绘了戈壁沙漠山区日常的场景，展示了游牧民族的日常，同时强调了自然在他们生活中的重要地位。

十年后，发生在 1921 年的蒙古革命对祖拉格绘画形成了打击。这场革命在苏联的指挥下，在蒙古境内推行共产主义。共产主义规定艺术创作应专注于颂扬社会主义，任何被苏联视为不合时宜的事物都遭到了压制。但这种艺术形式并未消失，而是在特定的环境中生存下来，地下艺术家也因此得以保持他们的文化认同。

1990 年，随着共产主义政权的垮台和民主制度的建立，新一代艺术家为蒙古祖拉格绘画赋予了全新的生命力。十年之后，这种绘画风格成功进入了学术界，甚至蒙古艺术文化大学成立专门学科。多年后，Baatarzorig 进入该校，修读美术专业。

Hero 1 (2021) Acrylic on canvas 《英雄1》(Hero I, 2017) 布面丙烯
Hero 2 (2021) Acrylic on canvas 《英雄2》(Hero II, 2017) 布面丙烯

Born in 1983, Batjargal remembers his childhood under the centrally planned communist economy as a carefree time. “Everyone was going to work; kids were going to school, and, at the end of the day, everyone met at home for dinner,” he says, but he realizes that his childhood memories do not represent the whole reality of Mongolia under Soviets. “There were also too many problems. For instance, the state took people’s assets. This happened to relatives from my mother’s side a few times. The oppression levels were also very high, and many intellectuals were falsely accused of things. Some even died as a result,” he says.

Communism was what brought the first real wave of modernization to Mongolia, and the changes seriously affected the nomadic lifestyle. The regime made many decisions regarding the lives of the nomadic herders, restricting their mobility and even nationalizing their private livestock. As a result, communities were broken, and skills and costumes were lost.

Batjargal was still in secondary school when the communist regime fell in 1990, and, like most Mongolians, he knew little about democracy. Still, the side effects of the country’s transition into the capitalist system were rapidly visible, especially in the capital. “From 1990 to 2000, Ulaanbaatar felt almost like a collapsed gray city, full of chaos. Crimes were prevalent, and I could see many alcoholics, homeless, beggars, and orphans everywhere,” he remembers. On the bright side, Western products, like Coca-Cola, were readily available for the first time and, with satellite technology, Mongolian society opened to the world. “After 1990, different ideas and movements were introduced. I could watch channels such as MTV and many types of films,” Batjargal says.

Baatarzorig 出生于1983年，他的童年在计划经济下度过。记忆里，那是一段无忧无虑的时光。他回忆道：“大人都去工作，孩子都在上学。一天结束的时候，全家人会在一起吃晚饭。”但他意识到，自己的童年记忆并不能完全代表苏联统治下的蒙古。“问题也很多。国家拿走了平民百姓的资产。母亲那边的亲戚经历过几次这种事情。人们也会受到很严重的压迫，许多知识分子遭到了诬告，甚至有人因此失去生命，”他说。

共产主义为蒙古带来了第一波真正的现代化浪潮，这些变化严重影响了游牧生活方式。政府的决策让游牧民族的生活相应发生了许多改变，他们被限制四处流动，私有牲畜国有化。随之而来的结果是，原来的社区支离破碎，一些民族技艺和传统服饰也面临失传。

1990 年共产主义政权垮台，Baatarzorig 那会儿还在上小学，和大多数蒙古人一样，当时的他并不知道什么叫民主。尽管如此，蒙古过渡到资本主义制度的影响很快就显现出来，特别是在首都。“从 1990 年到 2000 年，乌兰巴托如同一座崩溃的灰暗城市，混乱不堪。犯罪现象日益猖獗，我常常看到许多酗酒的醉汉和无家可归者，满街都是乞丐和孤儿，”他回忆道。而变好的方面是，他们可以在蒙古买到可口可乐等西方产品；借助卫星技术，蒙古社会也向世界打开了大门。“1990 年后，不同的思潮和运动纷纷涌入蒙古。我可以看 MTV 等频道和各种类型的电影，”Baatarzorig 说。

Highland (2019) Acrylic on canvas 《高地》(Highland, 2019) 布面丙烯

During the 1990s, many Mongolians who previously lived as nomads moved to brick apartments and houses in the city. And, since they could, some even carried their yurts. In the 2000s, it was common to see the white rounded tents assembled on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar. The children of nomads began to aspire to blue or white color jobs—or else they wanted to become big stars. Even those who defied modernity and kept their nomadic lifestyle couldn’t help but let some of the technological advancements into their lives. The almighty horse was progressively replaced by motorcycles or jeeps, and satellite dishes became standard additions to yurts everywhere.

Mongolians became more exposed to the outside world than ever before through foreign TV. Batjargal grew up watching Disney cartoons, the well-known narratives that uphold American values, symbolized, above all, in one character: Mickey Mouse. “The reason I started drawing Mickey Mouse is that I watched it when I was a child. It was when Western culture came in quickly and with great power. Things that appear to be Western were highly valued. My memories of that time are tied to Mickey Mouse,” Batjargal says.

He sees the character as the most prominent cultural ambassador of the West, “a hero that spreads the Western culture in different places. Children and people everywhere see and learn this culture, lifestyle, and philosophies through it. If we think about it, Mickey Mouse is a character that transforms and changes. It’s easy to think of a Kazakh kid near the Altai Tavan Bogd Mountains wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and of table cloths with Mickey Mouse patterns. Often you can find such things in the countryside of Mongolia, too. I think the same happens across Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and regions that used to follow the Soviet regime,” Batjargal says.

He even establishes an ironic parallel representing the worldwide indoctrination power of the happy rodent. “Mickey Mouse, in a trivial way, can be compared to the red star during the Soviet era, considering how widespread they both sank in,” he says. Batjargal’s depictions of Mickey Mouse are frightening. His version appears with glaring, crazy eyes and mischievous expressions, often taking the position of Buddhist deities across his paintings and several sculptures.

20 世纪 90 年代，许多蒙古游牧民搬到城市居住，在砖砌公寓和房屋里生活，有些人甚至带上了他们的蒙古包。2000 年代，经常可以看到人们在乌兰巴托郊区扎起白色的圆形帐篷。牧民的孩子开始向往蓝领或白领工作，有的人梦想成为明星。就连那些蔑视现代生活并保持游牧生活方式的人也忍不住在生活中享受科技的便利。马匹被摩托车或吉普车取而代之，卫星天线成为了蒙古包的标准配置。

通过外国电视，1990 年代的蒙古人接触到了比以往任何时候更丰富的外部世界。Baatarzorig 从小看迪士尼卡通长大，这些卡通片高举美国价值观，而米老鼠就是这些价值观的象征。他说：“我刚开始画米老鼠是因为这是我小时候看过的卡通片。那时候的西方文化迅速涌入，带来铺天盖地的影响，并显得格外珍贵。米老鼠就是我对那段时间的记忆。”

米老鼠对于 Baatarzorig 来说，就像是西方文化的代表，他接着说：“它像是一位使者，将西方文化传播至世界各地。世界各地的人们通过米老鼠认识西方文化、西方的生活方式和思想理念。米老鼠的出现让一切发生着转变，譬如在阿尔泰塔万博格德山脉附近，你可以看到穿着米老鼠 T 恤的哈萨克孩子和印着米老鼠图案的桌布。在蒙古乡村也能看到米老鼠的身影，而在中亚、东欧和其他曾经追随苏联政权的地区也发生着同样的变化。”

他甚至做了一个具有讽刺意味的类比，以表达米老鼠在全球的影响力。“米老鼠就像是苏联时代的红星，看似不起眼，却都有着潜移默化的作用，”他说道。Baatarzorig 笔下的米老鼠看上去面目可怖，露出了疯狂的眼神和淘气神情，且往往占据着绘画和雕塑中原属于佛教神灵的位置。

Red Hero (2017) Acrylic on canvas 《红色英雄》(Red Hero, 2017) 布面丙烯
Grande Tartaria (2017) Acrylic on canvas 《《庄严的鞑靼人》(Grande Tartaria, 2017) 布面丙烯

Another element that’s incongruous to the Mongolian landscape but that appears in his paintings is the figure of a shark, an intruding threat, like Mickey Mouse and the red star, swimming defiantly above it all, in a landlocked region. Curiously, Batjargal associates the shark with the British Navy and its predatory expansion over parts of the world. The animal is “the wolf of the water,” as he puts it, and “the predator of the sea.” The predator of the land would be the wolf; and of the air, the falcon. These three animals carry heavy military connotations, just like the camouflage patterns he sometimes includes, a direct allusion to the notions of power and aggression.

Batjargal likes to play with the dichotomy of predator and prey when depicting animals. Together with the various sharks, wolves, and falcons, we see many rabbits, which he reveals symbolize the nomads during the soviet era. “The rabbit is an animal that reproduces fast, but that is easy to manipulate,” he says. Another interesting recurrent element we see across his work is the red neck scarf, a clear nod to the Young Pioneers. From 1922 to 1991, this large youth organization amassed most children born in the Soviet Union and its satellite states, and one of its central doctrines was Marxist-Leninist atheism. The red scarf is a sign of indoctrination by the Soviets through youth education.

As we look attentively at Batjargal’s paintings, more and more elements emerge, most of them relating to the collapse of Soviet socialism and the arrival of Western capitalism in Mongolia, a mismatched assortment representing the collective stupor of a country torn between foreign ideologies. However, Batjargal notes he’s not criticizing any side. Naturally, he hints at dissatisfaction, but, above all, his work is a commentary on how everyone in the world is influenced by either one of these ideologies—or both simultaneously.

作品里另一种与蒙古风景格格不入的元素是鲨鱼，和米老鼠和红星一样，代表着入侵的威胁。充满挑衅的形象，大摇大摆地畅游于这个内陆国家之上。Baatarzorig 用鲨鱼来映射英国海军及其在世界部分地区的侵略扩张。正如他所说，这种动物是“海中之狼”，是“令人恐惧的掠食者”。加上陆地的狼和空中的猎鹰，这三种掠食者动物带着深厚的军事隐喻色彩，和他偶尔运用的迷彩图案一样，直接暗示权力与侵略的概念。

在描绘动物时，Baatarzorig 喜欢将掠食者与猎物处于相同的位置，在鲨鱼、狼和猎鹰的周围，还有着许多兔子。他解释这些兔子象征着苏联时代的游牧民族。他说：“兔子是一种繁殖速度快的动物，但很容易被操纵。”除此之外，他的作品里的另一个有趣的常见元素是红领巾，显然这是用来指代少先队。从 1922年到 1991 年，大多数在苏联及其卫星国出生的孩子都加入了这个大型青年组织。这个组织的核心学说之一是马列主义的无神论。而红领巾正是苏联政权通过青年进行教化的标志。

接着品味 Baatarzorig 的画作，你还会发现更多的元素。其中大多数都与苏联社会主义的崩溃和西方资本主义引入蒙古有关。错综复杂的元素代表了在各种外国意识形态的冲击下，以及人们的麻木和困惑。不过，Baatarzorig 指出，他无意批评任何一方。虽然他暗自表达了不满，但他在作品中更想表达的是，世界上每个人都无可避免受到其中一种或多种意识形态的影响。

Coral Island (2015) Gouash and ink on cotton 《红色英雄》(Red Hero, 2017) 水粉, 墨水和棉布

It’s not always easy to grasp Batjargal’s symbology or even the relationship between the elements he depicts. In fact, the meanings behind his works sometimes also evade him, the author. It doesn’t matter; clarity and realism are far from being his goal, and that’s one of his uniqueness when compared to other artists working on similar lines. “There are many artists who practice the Mongol zurag in Mongolia. I personally take direction in imaginary fields, things happening in our mind, instead of realism,” he explains. 

And as he prepares for an upcoming solo show in London, his interest in the unconscious thoughts that take place inside the human mind has been only expanding. “Recently, I’ve been investigating the notions that, above all, exist in our minds but are not set in reality, such as the ideal worlds of communism, capitalism, or even religions like Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity,” he reveals.

His work is indeed infused with beliefs that define the Mongolian psyche. Across all of his pieces, just like Sharav’s One Day in Mongolia, Batjargal acknowledges the longstanding respect Mongolians have for nature. “Mongolians believed that the world is alive, offering the finest food, such as milk, to the spirits of the mountains, lakes, and the sun,” he says.

To Mongolians, nature is not only a means of subsistence but a source of spiritual fulfillment. Given the essence of this relationship, it’s not surprising that nomadic herders are ready to lift their base and even move livestock every time the natural environment around them changes.

Sadly, beyond authoritarianism and cultural invasion, nature has also become a threat to this lifestyle. Climate change and the effects of overgrazing for commercial purposes have been causing desertification in areas that were previously vital grasslands. As a result, more and more nomads abandon the countryside and flock to Ulaanbaatar—a city that already ranks as one of the world’s most polluted capitals—progressing their cultural demise.

在观众眼中，Baatarzorig 作品中的符号意义或是他笔下各种元素之间的联系并不总是那么明了。有时候，作品背后的意义也会超出创作者的意图。但这并不重要，因为清晰的寓意和写实主义远非他的目标，而这也是他与其他祖拉格艺术家的不同之处。他解释道：“蒙古有许多创作祖拉格的艺术家。我个人更倾向于抽象的创作方向，譬如描绘内心的想法，而不是写实主义。”

在他筹备即将在伦敦举行的个展期间，他对人们内心无意识的想法愈发感兴趣。他说：“最近，我一直在研究那些存在于人们脑海里但尚未成为现实的观念，例如共产主义、资本主义，甚至是佛教、伊斯兰教和基督教等宗教描绘的理想世界。”

就像是他的作品也同样体现了蒙古人内心的信仰。正如 Baldugiin Sharav 那幅经典的《蒙古的一天》，Baatarzorig  的所有作品都传达出蒙古人自古以来对自然的敬仰。他说：“蒙古人相信世界是有生命的，为山脉、湖泊和太阳的神灵供奉上牛奶等各种食物。” 对蒙古人来说，自然不仅是一种生存手段，更是精神食粮的源泉。在这层关系下，每当周围的自然环境发生变化，游牧的牧民都会毫不犹豫地带上他们的牲畜，举家搬迁。

令人感到可悲的是，除了集权主义和文化入侵之外，大自然也成为这种生活方式的威胁。在气候变化和商业化导致的过度放牧的影响下，原本生机勃勃的草原地区逐渐荒漠化。结果，越来越多的游牧民族放弃农村，涌向乌兰巴托——一个已经被列为世界上污染最严重的首都城市之一，而这又进一步加速了其传统文化的消亡。

Wolf Totem (2017) Acrylic on canvas 《狼图腾》(Wolf Totem, 2017) 布面丙烯

Batjargal believes that the phenomenon of cultural extinction is analogous to what we see in animal extinction. He points out that customs and traditions of indigenous people are disappearing in the same fashion that some animal species are also going extinct—both because of the impacts of modern life. To him, the solution is to revisit the origins and reclaim the ancient, quintessential philosophies in which Mongolian society is rooted to pass them on to the newer generations before they disappear forever.

“Mongolians have always had a deep relationship with nature, and the philosophy of life has always been living in harmony with nature,” he says. “It’s a philosophical question of how we coexist with these distinct entities—the creatures in nature, the earth, the sky. As an artist, I strive to put these into my works to pass down this idea of coexistence with nature to the new generation.”

Batjargal’s powerful message resonates beyond Mongolia. Loss of heritage is a global issue, and he’s aware of that. With the growing international attention his work has been receiving, he’s thrilled to see his message reaching a broader audience. “Nowadays, my works are presented in international biennales and are getting recognized abroad. Art is a language without a need for translation. Through this language, my ideas reach many people regardless of where they are from,” he says.

Baatarzorig 认为，文化灭绝类似于动物灭绝，原住民的习俗和传统正在消失，与物种的消亡一样——罪魁祸首都是现代生活的影响。他认为要解决这个问题，就要重新审视文化根源，恢复蒙古社会所扎根的那些古老而根本的哲学理念，在它们永远消失之前将其传递给下一代人。

他说：“蒙古人一直与自然保持深厚联系，其生活理念一直是与自然和谐相处。这是一个关于我们如何与世间万物共存的哲学问题，包括自然界中的生物、地球和天空。作为艺术家，我努力在作品中融入这一切，将这种与自然共存的理念传递给下一代人。”

在蒙古地区之外，Baatarzorig 强有力的作品产生了更多共鸣。传统文化的消亡是一个全球性问题。随着他的作品在国际社会引发关注，他很高兴看到埋藏在作品中的理念能传达到更广泛的群体。他说：“我的作品在国际双年展上展出，也得到了国外观众的认可。艺术是一种不需要翻译的语言。通过这种语言，我可以将自己的想法传达给更多来自世界各地的人。”

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Contributor: Tomás Pinheiro, Lucas Tinoco
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li
Mongolian Translation: Purev Batdelger
Images Courtesy of Baatarzorig Batjargal & Jack Bell Gallery

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Instagram: @baatarzorigbatjargal

 

供稿人:Tomás Pinheiro, Lucas Tinoco
英译中: Olivia Li
蒙译英: Purev Batdelger
图片由 Baatarzorig Batjargal 与 Jack Bell Gallery 提供

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The Art of Plating 美食美器：烹饪美学档案

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Peacock Receives Guests, Prepared by Wang Kailiang, 2000 “孔雀迎宾”(2000)，王开亮制作

Outside of culinary circles, the art of plating is a seldom appreciated mode of expression. The presentation of food is often an afterthought to flavor. Even for the most die-hard gourmands who do recognize great presentation, what first comes to mind are typically Western dishes and plating techniques. The arrangement and decoration of traditional Chinese cuisine are hardly ever considered part of the conversation.

However, Chinese food plating has a much deeper history than most might give it credit for. Looking to shine a spotlight on the unsung art, the Instagram account Chinese Plating was born. The account, operated by Dieter Mackenbach, demonstrates a wide berth of creative presentations that’s been served up by Chinese chefs for the past few decades.

除非你是大厨和学者、或莅临某美食大赛现场、亦或是去“黑珍珠”或“米其林”餐厅就餐，现实中，你也许很少有机会能领略食物摆盘的艺术。尤其在快节奏生活的重重围困下，有多少人还会在意食物的艺术价值呢？或许提到传统的中餐摆盘艺术，普通人可能最多会想类似到松鼠鳜鱼、拔丝山药这种常见的菜式。当中餐摆盘艺术逐渐在日常中褪去轮廓，Dieter Mackenbach 的 Instagram 社交账号 “美食美器：烹饪美学档案”（Chinese Plating）的确让人大开眼界，令人仿佛置身于中华食物的大观园。各路创意摆盘令人眼花缭乱，天马行空的想象力让人惊叹，手中的盒饭顿时少了许多仪式感。

The Bodhisattva Guanyin, Prepared and photographed by Li Kai "观音菩萨"黄油雕塑，李凯制作、摄影
Longevity and Plum Blossoms, Prepared by Lu Xiangjun at the Sichuan Min Mountain Hotel "长寿梅花"，陆向军制作，四川岷山饭店

Mackenbach is a self-professed epicure who loves all aspects of food. While studying in university, the Los Angeles native had the opportunity to learn about gastronomic culture from across the world—which included recipes, food history, and nutritional knowhow. After graduating, he traveled extensively to learn more about food culture from around the world first hand, with a particular curiosity towards how food is prepared differently from region to region.

生于洛杉矶的 Dieter 是一位不折不扣的美食专家，不光会吃、会做，并一直对食物的方方面面充满强烈兴趣。藉由大学时期在洛杉矶攻读的图书馆与信息科学专业，他曾有机会研究大量食物方面的课题，其中包括了食物史、烹饪档案收藏、食谱搜索引擎、健康食谱规划等等。毕业后的几年，他甚至还前往不同地方学习不同国家的烹饪方式。

Millenium Dragon Dance, Prepared by Lu Fei "龙舞千禧"，卢飞制作
Moonlight "月色"
Jade Dragon, prepared by Zhou Zhongxuan, Photographed by Li Kai "玉龙", 周仲轩制作, 李凯摄影
Joy, Prepared by Xue Fuzhong "乐"，薛富忠制作

Though he’s experienced and learned about food from all over the world, Chinese cuisine holds a special place in his heart. Growing up in California, he lived in a neighborhood with a large Chinese population, and Chinese food was a staple cuisine for him and his parents. At the age of 17, he was invited to go back to Taipei with a Taiwanese friend, and his culinary experiences there cemented his love for Chinese food. After graduating with a degree in Anthropology, Mackenbach decided to further his studies in Taipei, where he studied Chinese language at National Taiwan University. As his love of Chinese cuisine deepened, he decided to truly dedicate himself to the craft. He moved to mainland China, studying at both the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine and Sichuan University to learn more about Chinese gastronomy. After concluding his studies, he landed a job in Beijing at The Hutong, a cultural exchange program, where he shared his knowledge of Chinese cooking with interested students.

关于 Dieter 对中餐的喜爱，可以算是他从小便培养起来的某种兴趣。他儿时生活环境住有很多华人邻居，吃中餐自然成了家庭惯例。虽然那时候大部分都是美式中餐，但几乎每周总会有机会吃到。直到 17 岁那年，他受朋友邀请前往台北做客，天花乱坠的味觉盛宴让他彻底沦陷。大学之后，他决定用两年时间在台湾大学（National Taiwan University）攻读汉语，期间，他又前往四川烹饪高等专科学校（Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine）练就川菜手艺。随后，他在四川大学（Sichuan University）进修，并最后在北京一家名叫“The Hutong”的公司内从事烹饪教育的工作，这一呆又是两年。

Crystal Dragon Dumplings, Prepared at the Chengdu Military District Wangjiang Hotel, Photographed by Luo Huiyuan "水晶龙饺 "，成都军区望江宾馆制作，罗缋沅摄影
Peacock Flies to the Southeasts, Prepared by Rao Xuegang "孔雀东南飞"，饶雪刚制作
Goldfish Tease the Lotus, Prepared by Huan Chengming "金鱼闹莲"，奂成明制作

“A lot of Americans have misconceptions about Chinese food,” Mackenbach notes. “They stereotype it as greasy or unhealthy, but they don’t truly know the cuisine outside of a few dishes. Chinese food is remarkably delicious, nutritious, sophisticated, and playful. So much thought goes into ingredient combinations, color appeal, textural contrast, and plating design with Chinese food. The names of dishes, in particular, are often highly poetic and allude to historically important events or places.”

Some of Mackenbach’s favorite dishes are typically more homely though, with dishes such as stir-fried Yunnan sticky rice cake, Sichuan boiled fish, and stinky tofu topping his list.

谈及这些年对中餐的理解，他说道：“很多美国人对中餐存在刻板印象，认为中餐油腻、不健康，但其实他们只认得几道菜而已。我认为中餐兼具味觉和营养的丰富，精致、好玩，且配料和颜色的选用上很有吸引力，包括食材的对比、摆盘设计，一看就是花了很多心思。食物的名字起得也好，有的诗情画意、有的具有地理和历史意义。”说到他最爱的菜肴，他紧接着说道：“当然是云南炒饵块、四川水煮鱼和臭豆腐！”

Coastal Mood, Prepared by Jiang Jianping "企鹅饺"，蒋建萍制作
Cartoon Chicken, Prepared by Hu Xiaokun "卡通鸡"，胡晓坤制作
Butterfly Plays with a Flower, Prepared by Zou Zhenghui "蝴蝶戏花"，邹正辉制作

Mackenbach’s fascination with the creativity of Chinese plating and food design came about by chance. One day, while perusing old magazines at a library in Beijing, he discovered a collection of vintage culinary magazines. In them, photography showcasing plating presentations by chefs from all over the country captured his imagination. In 2015, he decided to compile an archive of images culled from these publications. He sourced books and magazines from second-hand markets, and even found digitized versions of otherwise unobtainable material to curate a compendium of creative Chinese dishes from the past few decades. The latest posts have mostly consisted of Sichuan cuisine and food photography from the ’80s and ’90s, an era that he believed to be an especially creative period for Chinese chefs.

一次在北京游逛图书馆的经历，让 Dieter 对中餐摆盘看得入迷，“当时在馆藏的杂志里看到这些图片，绝美、独特的呈现方式令感到不可思议。”不久之后，他很快于 2015 年决定开启了 “美食美器：烹饪美学档案” 项目。Dieter 在跳蚤市场成箱订购大量二手杂志和图书、一些仅存的数字版也被他统统买到，然后通过手机和扫描工具对书中的图片进行采集，并发布于网络。

对于现代人来说，图片上的菜式令人眼花撩乱，一些菜式甚至是闻所未闻。像“东方明珠”（Brilliant Peal of the East）、“兔年吉祥”（Year of the Rabbit Masco）、“孔雀迎宾”（Peacock Receives Guests）等菜肴，以极具直观的制作手法，挑战观众的想象力。而透过菜式颜色的搭配，还能看出当时的中国，人们对于鲜艳、耀眼颜色的追崇，放在现在来说“土气十足”，却令人联想到曾经喇叭裤、蛤蟆镜、霹雳舞盛行的年代。

目前他所收集的方向以中国八九十年代的川菜和中餐的摆盘设计为主，展现了那个改革开放后初期，人们的创意与传统开花的时代。而这些画面看似年代久矣，却在无纸化的当下，显得弥足珍贵且重要。Dieter 在后来回到美国，同样的搜及流程还在继续。由于国际运费高昂，账号更新的速度变慢，但他也决然坚持。

Spirit Launched from the Sea Foam, Prepared and Photographed by Li Kai "浪花推出精灵"，李凯制作、摄影
Dragon Boat, Prepared by Wang Changfu "龙舟"，王常福制作
Shrimp Frolicking with Lotus, Attributed to Xie Wenzhi "群虾戏莲"，解文志制作

His collection features a dazzling array of original delicacies that capture the imagination, such as “Brilliant Peal of the East,” “Year of the Rabbit Mascot,” or “Peacock Receives Guests.” The colors of the dishes and photos also reveals an affinity for vibrant palettes in China at the time. Though it may now seem gaudy and out of style, it’s an aesthetic that reminds of simpler times in the country.

The presentation of Chinese dishes tend to find inspiration from every aspect of the country’s culture, drawing from art traditions, architectural styles, literary history, and even folklores. Mackenbach’s intensive studies in China and input from Chinese scholar friends has helped him give context to each image, which he’s captioned in both Chinese and English. With these titles, the photographed food arrangements allude to Chinese history, mythology, and the country’s literary lineage.

不难看出，中餐摆盘蕴含着许多中国传统文化的学问。一道菜，可以是一件雕塑品、一种建筑风格、一幅画、一首诗、一段古老的传说。表面是做菜的工艺，其实考量的更是文化的底蕴。透过多年对汉语的学习，以及文言文学者朋友的协助，Dieter 对每张图片进行中英文对照的标注。从他所收藏的作品来看，中餐摆盘主要围绕中国历史、神话、自然界和食文呼应的角度展开制作，其中一些可供人食用，另外一些则单纯为了美学、或是为了参赛作品使用。

Two Hearts Beating as One, Prepared by Cai Hu "比翼双飞"，蔡虎制作
Peony and Snow Lotus, Prepared by Luo Xiaohui "牡丹雪莲"，罗孝辉制作
Sea Shells “海洋贝壳”

Even though he’s since moved back to Los Angeles, Mackenbach has continued maintaining the account. However, due to logistic hurdles and the increase in difficulty of sourcing material being an ocean away, updates eventually slowed. Even with these headwinds, Mackenbach has no plans of abandoning the project. He’s currently working at a local university, and a jam-packed schedule has meant a short hiatus for his account. He’ll be resuming regular updates in the coming future and even has plans of organizing an exhibition for his collection of vintage food photography. “Food history is an interesting subject, and there are many librarians and archivists who dedicate themselves to researching and preserving these stories,” he says. “I want to be someone who helps pass down these culinary legacies and history. They deserve to be preserved.”

现在，Dieter 在家乡洛杉矶的一所本地大学从事图书馆档案管理工作，本科学院繁重的工作压力加上新工作的计划，让“美食美器：烹饪美学档案”项目整整停摆了一年时间。对于未来，他想尽快重新回到中餐摆盘的收集中来，并梦想有朝一日可以举办展览、甚至去拜访那些旧书的出版商。他说：“食物历史曾发生过很多有趣的事，也会有相应的图书馆员、档案管理员来调研并保存这些故事，我想我就是这样的人，想方设法地将这些烹饪遗产、历史资源好好地保留下来。”

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Contributor: Pete Zhang

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