张北辰：对抗完美投影
Beichen Zhang：Resisting
Perfect Projection
Beichen Zhang：Resisting
Perfect Projection
Interviewer: zhuo / Lucille
Date: 05/29/2024
Keywords: cultural heritge / asian colonial history / metaphor
Date: 05/29/2024
Keywords: cultural heritge / asian colonial history / metaphor
张北辰，1993 年出生于中国山东，于2019 年获得美国马里兰艺术学院摄影与电子媒介艺术硕士学位。他专注于使用摄影的叙事结构揭开隐藏的历史，作品常以摄影，散文电影，混合媒介以及机构研究等形式进行。近期，他使用多种媒介进行质疑与调查文化和技术遗产与亚洲殖民历史的关系，档案和地缘关系的变迁以及身份在后殖民主义语境中的流动性。他的作品是通过个人叙事，构架出一种隐喻和诗意的视觉体验，通过对人类学，历史和艺术跨学科的研究以自身的思想重新来审视和构建一种诗意的视觉语言。
张北辰的作品曾在多个国际平台进行展出，他曾获得多个奖项与提名包括:“荷兰Foam Paul Huf Award 提名”(2023年)，“柏林 C/O 人才奖提名(2023 年)，“第八届新加坡国际摄影节最佳作品奖”(2022 年)，“第五届 Top20 中国新锐摄影师”(2021年)，“第十二届三影堂媒体关注奖”(2020年)。
Beichen Zhang (b.1993, Shandong, China) received his MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2019 (United States). Focused on unveiling hidden histories through photography’s narrative structures, his artistic works often manifest in the form of photographs, essay films, mixed media installations and institutional research. Recently, he worked with a broad range of media to query and investigate the relationship of cultural heritages and Asian colonial history, archive and geopolitical vicissitude, and the identity’s fluidity within the post-colonialism context. His work is a set of a visual experience of a metaphorical method through personal narratives. Through the research of archaeology and anthropology, history, and other disciplines, he examines and builds a poetic visual language with its thoughts.
He has received numerous international accolades and nominations, including the nominations for the Foam Paul Huf Award 2023, the nominations C/O Berlin Talent Award 2023, the Best Portfolio Prize of the 8th Singapore International Photography Festival (2022), the selected Artist of Top 20.21 Chinese Contemporary Photographer (2021), the Media Award of the 12th Three Shadows Photography Award (2020).
张北辰的作品曾在多个国际平台进行展出，他曾获得多个奖项与提名包括:“荷兰Foam Paul Huf Award 提名”(2023年)，“柏林 C/O 人才奖提名(2023 年)，“第八届新加坡国际摄影节最佳作品奖”(2022 年)，“第五届 Top20 中国新锐摄影师”(2021年)，“第十二届三影堂媒体关注奖”(2020年)。
Beichen Zhang (b.1993, Shandong, China) received his MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2019 (United States). Focused on unveiling hidden histories through photography’s narrative structures, his artistic works often manifest in the form of photographs, essay films, mixed media installations and institutional research. Recently, he worked with a broad range of media to query and investigate the relationship of cultural heritages and Asian colonial history, archive and geopolitical vicissitude, and the identity’s fluidity within the post-colonialism context. His work is a set of a visual experience of a metaphorical method through personal narratives. Through the research of archaeology and anthropology, history, and other disciplines, he examines and builds a poetic visual language with its thoughts.
He has received numerous international accolades and nominations, including the nominations for the Foam Paul Huf Award 2023, the nominations C/O Berlin Talent Award 2023, the Best Portfolio Prize of the 8th Singapore International Photography Festival (2022), the selected Artist of Top 20.21 Chinese Contemporary Photographer (2021), the Media Award of the 12th Three Shadows Photography Award (2020).
A: Welcome to Artisle, Beichen! Could you briefly introduce the project you're currently working on?
B: Hello，大家好, 很开心能来Artisle做客。我最近在搜集和处理一个影像作品的前期工作，这部散文影片以“啤酒花”为线索，关注了早期山东半岛与外部知识构建（植物与地理）碰撞的事件，并深入探讨了“啤酒公司”图像与其生产策略如何帮助其在历史不同时期进行扩张。项目聚焦在位于中国北部沿海城市某座啤酒厂。该酒厂于19世纪末至20世纪初时期由德国创办，故事从早期蛋白工艺摄影到如今位于时代广场的的巨幅高清广告展开。
B: Hello, everyone. I'm very happy to be here at Artisle. Recently, I've been collecting and processing preliminary work for a video project. This essay film uses "hops" as a thread, focusing on the collision of the early Shandong Peninsula with external in terms of knowledge[MOU1] (plants and geography). It delves into how the imagery and production strategies of "beer companies" have helped them expand across different historical periods. The project centers around a brewery in a northern coastal city of China, founded by Germans in the late 19th to early 20th century. The story unfolds from early albumen print photography to today's massive high-definition advertisements in Times Square.
A: Why did you choose "islands" as the subject of your project “The sun rises, the Great Northern Telegraph Station sinks into the sea” (2022-ongoing)? How do you interpret "islands" in your terms?
B: 2018年起，我开始“回响”系列的创作，这个项目关注了全球数个海岛区域的物理，地理现实与历史之间的所面临的新关系。其中描述了不同国家的“海岛”——这些特殊的地理区位如何在新的科技，金融与地缘变化中展现出新的模式并与历史纠葛达成和解的。我将不同地区的海岛与港口作为自己研究与创作的样本，把自己创作的数个相关项目组成了一个具象的集证系统。在横向创作中，调查诸多与海岛经济相关的物，人群移动的系统议题；在纵向图像研究中，挖掘每个项目背后的海岛或者海洋历史并引申为现实系统的视觉投射。
项目中的丹麦大北电报公司（the Great Northern Telegraph Company）是19世纪晚期于中国东南沿海的鼓浪屿之上建立的一座电报站，这座自海洋铺设而来的通信设施将沉寂的岛屿掷于横跨亚欧大陆的电报系统之中。基于此，我的项目特别关注外来通讯设施及其知识构建与本土历史的纠葛，探寻通信技术的殖民痕迹在本地化时逐渐转变和加密进程。
B: Since 2018, I've been working on the "Reverberation" series, which probes the collision of geographic realities and historic forces within several archipelagoes around the globe –– the mutation and reconciliation of different localities under the technological boom and the metamorphosis of economic and geopolitical relations. The ports of the archipelagoes are specimens that ground my research, forming an entangled web of evidence that demystifies issues of economy, migration and oceanic history. The eventual archives coalesce a visual narration of archipelago historicity and contemporality.
The Great Northern Telegraph Company is a telegraph station established on Kulangsu in southeast coast of China in the late 19th century, t. This communication facility drags the dormant island into the European colonial network guided through the telegraph cables. The project surveys the entanglement of communication infrastructures, tele-governance techniques, and regional histories as a means to probe the colonial traces of communication technology and its process translation and encryption when localized.
“太阳升起, 大北电报站沉入海底”, 于展览"无声之后 Postscript of Silence"安装视图, 明当代美术馆 McaM, 2023, 展览摄影: JLW Studio, 致谢艺术家
“The sun rises, the Great Northern Telegraphy Station sinks into the sea” Project, 2018-2023, Installation view at "Postscript of Silence", McaM, 2023, photo: JLW Studio, Courtesy of the artist
A: I noticed that “The Sun Rises, the Great Northern Telegraph Station Sinks into the Sea” (2022-ongoing) consists of three chapters. Can you briefly introduce the ongoing second and third chapters? Do they have any connection?
B: 新的章节是基于第一个章节的延伸。三个章节的联系线索是电报公司和网络，电报站，电报员——在电报传输中一种单位尺度的变化。在创作第一章节时，我将焦点放置在了外来通讯设施及其知识构建与本土历史的纠葛方面，对于小岛之上的电报站如何处理信息与信息的传递，中断，和处理错误进行了一些创作。项目的重点始终关注在岛屿本身与外部的连接。
然而，随着我的图像材料越发多样，以及这两年创作萌发出新的转向想法，它的轮廓似乎也在变化，不断地生长。当我在互联网上放大观看电报网络的触角和城市节点图像时，高像素的摄影勾勒出因线缆制作需要而被建设的东南亚橡胶城，今天依旧由红色卡车穿梭的港口所环绕。我才逐渐注意到章节一所描绘的幕后推手——“电报公司”，它未曾休眠，隐蔽着，又余波不息。
第三章则更加关注具体的人物在巨大电报网络中的身影，从英国制图师爱德华维勒（Edward Weller) 于1901年所绘的世界电报图纸出发，本章节以散文电影的形式关注鼓浪屿周边电报员，电报工人所做出的非殖民化努力，从电报符号的符号释义之争，电报资本体系再至电报世博会建构的跨洲际网络，这些实践隐藏着革命理想、科学追求和冒险传奇，他们为电报的永动之躯的幻想而沸腾，燃烧至今。
B: The new chapters are extensions of the first one. The common thread linking all three chapters is the telegraph company and network, the telegraph station, and the telegraph operators, representing changes in unit scales of telegraph transmission. The first chapter focused on the entanglement of local history with foreign communication facilities and its knowledge structure, exploring how island telegraph stations handle information and its transmission, interruption, and error processing. The project consistently emphasizes the island's connection with the outside world.
As my image materials have become more diverse and my ideas have evolved over the past two years, the project's outline seems to be constantly changing and growing. When I examined high-resolution images of telegraph network branches and city nodes online, I noticed the construction of Southeast Asian rubber cities, driven by cable production needs and surrounded by bustling ports with red trucks. This led me to realize that the driving force behind the first chapter—the "telegraph company"—remains active, hidden, and influential.
The third chapter focus on the figures of specific people in the massive telegraph network. Starting from the world telegraph map drawn by British cartographer Edward Weller in 1901, the chapter focuses on the decolonization efforts of telegraph operators and telegraph workers around Kulangsu in the form of essay film. From the battle for interpretation of Chinese telegraphic symbol, and telegraph capital system to the transcontinental network of the Telegraph Expo. The film rediscovers the revolutionary ideals, scientific pursuits, and adventure legends hidden in these practices, and the struggles for translation.
“太阳升起, 大北电报站沉入海底”, 于展览"无声之后 Postscript of Silence"安装视图, 明当代美术馆 McaM, 2023, 展览摄影: JLW Studio, 致谢艺术家 (图左）
“The sun rises, the Great Northern Telegraphy Station sinks into the sea” Project, 2018-2023, Installation view at "Postscript of Silence", McaM, 2023, photo: JLW Studio, Courtesy of the artist（left）
“太阳升起, 大北电报站沉入海底”影像静帧, 2022年, 致谢艺术家（图右）
The still image of “The sun rises, the Great Northern Telegraphy Station sinks into the sea”, 2022, Courtesy of the artist（right）
A: In the project “The Strangers” (2016-2019) why did you choose photography installations as the main medium, and what considerations went into selecting the objects for the installations? How do you express the concept of imagery through these installations?
B: 这个项目探讨了年轻人和当地村民（其中一些来自山东）的移民和海外工作浪潮。2016年冬天，我参观了几个遗弃的厂房宿舍，探讨了它们作被劳动力流动所塑造的状况。这些地点是集体记忆和个人知识的交界地带，跨国劳工的存在在传统农村社会中常常面临着来自家庭责任和农村社会期望的巨大压力。在探索过程中，我遇到了工人们在狭窄的环境中留下的一些废弃物品。这些物品和标记在昏暗的灯光下透露出他们对未来的愿望。同时，我从本土作家以及古典绘画中“理想与宁静的居所”所象征的经典符号如喷泉、楼梯、窗户等中汲取灵感，将这些物体重新组装成一些新的装置。通过对这些物体的干预，挖掘记忆通道来唤起对于现实的冥想，揭示他们获得、失去或忘记。
按照上述想法，我完成了一系列的图片。例如图与喷泉相关的三重隐喻，乌托邦世界中永动的力量，当地村庄的生产资料（泉水），关于“居所”的某些仪式性时刻。
B: This project explores the migration and overseas work wave among young people and local villagers, some of whom are from Shandong. In the winter of 2016, I visited several abandoned factory dormitories to investigate their condition shaped by labor mobility. These locations are intersections of collective memory and personal knowledge, where the presence of transnational workers often faces immense pressure from familial responsibilities and rural societal expectations. During the exploration, I encountered discarded objects left by workers in cramped environments, These objects and marks reveal their aspirations for the future under dim lighting. Inspired by local writers and classical paintings that symbolize "ideal and tranquil dwellings" with elements like fountains, staircases, and windows, I reassembled these objects into new installations. By intervening with these objects, I aim to excavate memory pathways to evoke contemplation of reality, revealing what they have gained, lost, or forgotten.
Based on the above ideas, I have completed a series of images. For example, a triptych of metaphors related to a fountain, depicting the perpetual force in a utopian world, the local village's means of production (spring water), and certain ritualistic moments about "dwelling."
左起：他者3号, 彩色摄影（收藏级打印）, 2016-2019年, 致谢艺术家
Left to Right: The Strangers#3, Archival Inkjet Print, 2016-2019, Courtesy of the artist
他者4号, 彩色摄影（收藏级打印）, 2016-2019年, 致谢艺术家
The Strangers#4, Archival Inkjet Print, 2016-2019, Courtesy of the artist
A: The project “The Shadow of the Temples” (2016-2019) explores the historical changes of temples through a fictional story. How did you conceive this story? How is the meaning of the temple reconstructed in the story?
B: “寺之影”描述了一个影子与年轻人的意外相遇。通过这个虚构的故事，我回溯了数个位于山东鲁南地区的寺庙的故事。这些寺庙最初是民间信仰结社之地，经历了封建帝国的崩溃、帝国主义入侵之冲击以及现代旅游业改造的变迁。从未命名的破旧庙宇到离奇的景观，这里被荒诞的对话与回声所包围。
我的项目中，寺庙更像是一株向四处生长的藤曼。在项目的书里，古老战场的地面铺满了书面，把没落的帝国军队和农耕民族的对抗贯穿其中；随着书籍的翻阅向前，看似无关地荒野中的骸骨，隐秘的洞穴与现代寺庙建造场所的的起落架链接在一起。
B: The Shadows of the Temples portrays an unpredictable encounter between a shadow man and a young man. The artist tracks the shifting history and mysterious folktales of several temples in the Southern Shandong area based on this fictional story. These temples were once-born places of folktales. They experienced the collapse of the feudal empire, the imperialism invasion, and finally transferred to modern travel spots. From unnamed dilapidated temples to alien landscapes, the place is surrounded by absurd dialogues and echoes.
In my project, the temple is more like a vine growing in all directions. In the project's book, the page is covered by the ground of the ancient battlefield, which is intertwined with the conflicts between the fallen imperial army and agrarian societies. As the pages are turned, seemingly unrelated elements such as the skeletons in the wilderness, hidden caves, and the rise and fall of modern temple construction sites are connected.
摄影书《寺之影》中的摄影, 29.6cmx52cm黑白摄影，张北辰，2022摄影书《寺之影》展开，摄影书（蝴蝶装），14.8x26cm, 2020年，致谢艺术家（图左）
The shadows of the temples photography book, 14.8x26cm , 2020, Courtesy of the artist（left）
寺之影1号，60x40cm (不含装裱)，收藏级打印，2020年，致谢艺术家（图右）
The shadows of the temples #1, Archival Inkjet Print, 60x40cm (Unframed), 2020, Courtesy of the artist（right）
A: The project “The Untethered Ashes” (2023) is a narrative film that tells the story of a fisherman and a ghost, whose bond stretches from the coast of Vancouver Island across the vast Pacific Ocean. How does the film address issues of transnational memory and identity?
B: 我与搭档彦潼在创作时将叙事小说和民族志研究相结合，重新想象在历史失忆中丢失的未知地点和无证传记，这些失忆与早期中国移民的跨太平洋旅程紧密相连。
影像中，渔夫居住在中国山东半岛，他的祖先在第一次世界大战期间，作为劳工随大英帝国军队征召到欧洲前线服役。渔夫在他祖父当年跨越太平洋离开的海岸小憩时，接触到了一个幽灵。这个幽灵仍然保留着温哥华岛上一名中国劳工的碎片记忆，这位劳工也是在第一次世界大战期间从岛上的威廉海德征召入伍的。渔夫前往遥远的地方，从分散的记忆中寻找先辈的踪迹。影片中出现的景观，在寻找它们的时刻似乎是一场在现代废墟和古代遗址中的游历。渔夫在落日前登上港口，几经改造的营地，以及直至今日溪水潺潺的矿洞。项目展览现场将这些图景与铜铸蜂鸟共同作用，连接着某些重要的事件与人物。
B: My partner, Yantong, and I combined narrative fiction with ethnographic research during the creation process, reimagining uncharted sites and undocumented biographies lost in the historical amnesia that closely intertwines the Trans-Pacific journey of early Chinese migrants.
The fisherman, who resides in the Shandong Peninsula in China, is the descendant of local labour drafted by the British Imperial force to serve on the European frontlines during WWI. While resting on the shore where his grandfather had departed across the Pacific, the fisherman comes in contact with a ghost who still maintains fragmented memories of a Chinese migrant on Vancouver Island, who was also drafted during WWI from William Head on the island. While being possessed, the fisherman experiences hallucinations traveling to a distant land, searching for the ancestor’s traces from iscattered memories. The landscapes that appear in the film seem like a journey through modern ruins and ancient sites as they are sought out. The fisherman arrives at the port before sunset, visits a camp that has undergone several transformations, and explores a mine where the stream still flows today. In the project exhibition, these scenes are presented alongside bronze-cast hummingbirds, linking certain significant events and figures.
左起：张北辰与李彦潼合作，影像“无烬”的静帧，14分20秒，3屏影像，4k标准(色彩与声音)，2023年
Left to Right: Beichen Zhang and Yantong Li, the Still image of the Untethered Ashes, 14:20, 3-screen 4K videos (color and sound), 2023
张北辰与李彦潼合作，影像“无烬”的静帧，14分20秒，3屏影像，4k标准(色彩与声音)，2023年
Beichen Zhang and Yantong Li, The Still image of the Untethered Ashes, 14:20,3-screen 4K videos (color and sound), 2023
A: The project "11,565 Kilometers" also revolves around museums and colonial history, and is composed of three parts. Can you briefly introduce the narrative relationship between them? How do you utilize artistic practice to decolonize and reconstruct new narratives and archives?
B: 这个项目开始于编号40-35-4号文物由物质与文本之间的表述错位的思考，数年中通过不同场域的实践创造一个新的档案以推动其成为某种行动表达。
2018-2020年间，项目重点调查了中国文物的海外流通，中国殖民历史档案的复杂性，描绘了名为Object#40-35-4的汉代坟墓碎片由中国开始的长期迁徙，背后的其历史殖民背景以及美国博物馆机构的权力动态。我将摄影以及图像生产存放在社会网络的具体单元之中，围绕特殊的场域，机构与文化系统。这个阶段，我认识到摄影调查可以重临原境并且接近更加隐秘的历史，制作标本与档案以物理信息的形式可以弥补文物文本化之后的空白。同时，由上述图像与档案所建立起来的“虚构文物展览”可以生成新的场域，重新思考嵌入文物历史叙述中的机构叙事。
从2021年开始，11,565公里将关注点延申到更广阔的文物流通，博物馆去殖民化等相关的艺术实践语境中，基于Object#40-35-4的故事作为索引，我与搭档李彦潼，探针小组合作构建了“Unstranded Archive（未搁浅档案）”。该档案设想了一个无穷无尽的档案馆，其包容性历史和非殖民化实践是通过社区参与和相互教学而不是机构调解来实现的。未搁浅档案设想了一种非殖民化的实践，它在三个切线中展开——认知、日常和艺术（特别是基于镜头的作品）。通过定期与从事基于镜头的作品的艺术家合作，重新唤醒无声的历史。为了对艺术家们的作品做出更紧凑的历史回应，我们将艺术家超出图像范围的扩展研究和额外研究进行存档，设想了一种选择或一种方法，它可以走向去殖民化实践的站点。
接下来的实践中，未搁浅档案最重要的就是把它扩大为一种行动，该档案重新构想了数字化档案在当今世界文物归还背景中的作用，揭示殖民主义、战争和社会动荡使文物所有权产生了模糊性，倡导当代文物归还和非殖民化实践中的多维想象力。
B: This project began with thoughts on the dislocation between material and textual representations of artifact No. 40-35-4. Through practices in different contexts over several years, it aims to create a new archive and promote the thoughts to become a form of action expression.
Between 2018 and 2020, the project investigated the circulation of Chinese artifacts, the complexity of Chinese colonial histories. It portrays the long migration of the Chinese coffin fragment named Object#40-35-4, its historical colonial background, and the power dynamics within institutional museum collections. At this stage, I realize that the investigation through photography could reconstruct artifacts’ original contexts and uncover those veiled histories; the making of artifact specimens and archives employ material information to confront the muted historical narrative beyond textualization. The “imagined artifact exhibition” constructed upon the image and archive enumerated above can form new sites that interrogate the power dynamics of museum space and the cultural structures embedded within the institutional narratives of artifactual histories.
From 2021, “11565km” project extends its artistic dialogue to museums’ broader circulation of artifacts, antiques, and decolonial praxis. Utilizing the story of Object#40-35-4 as the central pavement, Yantong Li ,Tangent Team (Developer: Chen Sun and Kun Fei ) and me constructed Unstranded Archive.
Unstranded Archive imagines an interminable archive whose inclusive history and decolonial praxis are reached through communal engagements and mutual pedagogy rather than institutional mediations. The Archive imagines a decolonial praxis that unfolds in three tangents –– the episteme, the quotidian, and the artistic (specifically on lens-based works). Through periodical collaboration with artists who engage with lens-based works, the project reawakens muted histories. To inaugurate a more compact history in response to their works, the archive extended research and additional studies conducted by artists beyond the confines of the image object. They imagine an option or a method that moves towards heterogeneous nodes of decolonial praxis.
In the future practise, it is most significant to extend Unstranded Archive to an action. The archive have reimagined the role of digitization within the context of the repatriation of artifacts, revealing the ambiguity of artifact ownership when complicated by colonialism, war, and sociopolitical upheavals, and advocating for multidimensionality and imagination within contemporary repatriation and decolonial praxis.
想象的文物展览现场安装图，一场想象的文物展览发生在一幢19世纪的建筑中，张北辰，2019年
Imagined artifact exhibition installation view, An imagined artifacts exhibition in a 19th-century ancient architecture, Beichen Zhang, 2019
11，565公里项目在展览博物之知（榴莲·榴莲：作为方法论的区域艺术研究），广州美院美术馆，广州，中国，2023（图左）
11，565 Kilometers Project installation view in Unlearning by Nature（Durian-Durian: Southeast Asian Studies as a Methodology）, Guangzhou, Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, 2023(left)
11，565公里项目摄影装置Cardinal Gallery现场安装图全景，190x109英尺，彩色照片；艺术家收藏的图片（1890-1920）；棉线；T型针；土壤与岩石，张北辰，2019年（图右）
Main view of 11,565 Kilometers Project photographic installation in the Cardinal Gallery, 190 x109 inch, Media: Color photo, artist's collection (1890-1920), cotton thread, T-needle, soil and rock, Beichen Zhang, 2019(right)
11，565 Kilometers Project installation view in Unlearning by Nature（Durian-Durian: Southeast Asian Studies as a Methodology）, Guangzhou, Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, 2023(left)
11，565公里项目摄影装置Cardinal Gallery现场安装图全景，190x109英尺，彩色照片；艺术家收藏的图片（1890-1920）；棉线；T型针；土壤与岩石，张北辰，2019年（图右）
Main view of 11,565 Kilometers Project photographic installation in the Cardinal Gallery, 190 x109 inch, Media: Color photo, artist's collection (1890-1920), cotton thread, T-needle, soil and rock, Beichen Zhang, 2019(right)
A: It can be noticed that you continuously adjust and reflect on the exhibition methods and audience participation at different stages of “11,565 Kilometers”. How do you balance the relationship between artistic expression and the audience?
B: 通过在古老空间中展示虚构的文物故事，我试图放大博物馆展示模式中的问题，让观众质疑和思考其真实，行动本身更像是一场虚构文物展览；在新加坡国际摄影节的展览中，我会强调“未搁浅档案”以一种海报的形式，更直接，贴近与观众的互动，想让这种声音成为一种呼喊。
B: By displaying fictional artifact stories in ancient spaces, I aim to highlight issues within the museum exhibition model, prompting the audience to question and contemplate its authenticity. The action itself resembles a fictional artifact exhibition. In the exhibition at the Singapore International Photography Festival, I emphasize the " Unstranded Archive" in the form of posters, which is more straightforward and closer to audience interaction. I want this voice to become a call.
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“Unstranded Archive 宣言”在第八届新加坡国际摄影节, 新加坡, 2022年，图片由 SIPF 2022 惠允，2022年
The “Unstranded Archive Manifesto” Poster posted in the 8th SIPF, Singapore, 2019, image courtesy of SIPF 2022
“Unstranded Archive 宣言”在第八届新加坡国际摄影节, 新加坡, 2022年，图片由 SIPF 2022 惠允，2022年
The “Unstranded Archive Manifesto” Poster posted in the 8th SIPF, Singapore, 2019, image courtesy of SIPF 2022
A: Does the process of archival collection provide you with any unique insights? How do you use this to construct your own creative system?
B: 我希望自己的档案收集行为可以让档案本身成为更具有想象或者破坏力的文件。
我的体系构建方式垂直且向下，首先将摄影档案的安置在某个系统中，重视时间与物质材料的放大，捕捉回荡在时段中的经验。同时，我关注物体如何被转移，隐藏和照亮，以及这些结果背后的原因，无论是个体加工还是集体动作。其次，从艺术调研的结构出发，将图像生产与思考存放在社会网络的具体单元之中，围绕特殊的场域和结构进行思考，将自身的图像视为某种“对抗完美投影”的方式存在。最后使用工具，在档案中漫步，游猎以产生图像。
B: I hope that my archival collection can transform the archive itself into documents with greater imaginative or destructive power.
My system construction is vertical and downward. First, I place photographic archives within a specific system, focusing on the amplification of time and material, capturing experiences that echo through periods. I also pay attention to how objects are transferred, hidden, and illuminated, and the reasons behind these outcomes, whether they are individual processes or collective actions. Secondly, starting from the structure of artistic research, I embed image production and thinking within specific units of social networks, reflecting on special contexts and structures, and viewing my images as a form of "resisting perfect projection." Finally, I use tools to wander through the archives and hunt to generate images.
舟烬项目于杭州高帆摄影艺术中心展览现场，张北辰，2023年，展览摄影：吴泽桦
The installation view of the ashes of canoes at Gaofan photography Museum, Beichen Zhang, 2023. Exhibition Photographer Allen Wu
A: Will you be exploring new media or interdisciplinary approaches in the future? Are there any new plans or projects you’d like to reveal?
B: 沿着上述所谈诸多线索，过去一年我的创作一直在工业遗产附近徘徊。我试图自己对于技术的想象埋在多线的历史叙事里，挖掘和触碰那些反复唤起我们记忆和情感的历史褶皱。目前，我计划去沙特拍摄一个新项目，观察阿拉伯半岛的导航技术。
我希望使用影像特写部分当下的沙特阿拉伯基础设施同工作人群（移民群体以及年轻一代）之间的紧密关系，以及无线电爱好者俱乐部等。关注这些声音的如何在与东亚交流的过程中持续发声。
B: Following the many clues mentioned above, my work over the past year has been focused on industrial heritage. I have been trying to embed my imagination of technology within multi-layered historical narratives, delving into and touching on historical folds that repeatedly evoke our memories and emotions. Currently, I plan to shoot a new project in Saudi Arabia, observing the navigation technology of the Arabian Peninsula.
I aim to use close-up imagery to highlight the close relationship between current Saudi infrastructure, working populations (including immigrant groups and the younger generation), and radio enthusiast clubs. I am interested in how these voices continue to resonate in interactions with East Asia.