Bei Fu (Farewell Poem)
Artist
Chen Qiulin
(Chinese, born 1975, Hubei)
Date2003
MediumVideo on DVD (9 minutes)
ClassificationsDigital Art
Credit LineStoddard Acquisition Fund
Terms
Object number2007.81
DescriptionVideo on master tape with two DVD copiesLabel TextWhen Chen Qiulin returned in 2002 to her hometown of Wanzhou, a once-critical port along the Yangtze and one of the cities flooded by the Three Gorges Dam project, she was inspired to record the dramatically altered landscapes and human displacement caused by the dam. In her “farewell poem” to Wanzhou, Chen creates a collage of contrasts: present and past, documentary and myth, demolition and construction. Chen’s camera weaves its way through the city recording the sights and sounds of an urban landscape under transition. Layered into this contemporary soundstage are two narratives symbolic of China’s past: the fictional drama of Farewell My Concubine and Chen’s search for the sites of her childhood. Chen portrays the dam’s effects as not only an immediate absence on the physical landscape but also an enduring psychological loss associated with changes in contemporary China’s cultural landscape and experienced in the vanishing of childhood memories, the disappearance of societal traditions, and the rupturing of family ties.ProvenanceMax Protetch Gallery, New York, NY
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