The Lost Town, 2017
Photo Series
I come from Asia but I started to learn art in America. Most of my educational background and life experiences come from Asia. That is why I always use Asian ways of thinking but American methods for making art. I love to show different cultures in different countries through my work. I really want more people to know the Asian culture as it is in my mind, and at times I combine the visual styles of various cultures together to illuminate their differences. For example, I have used images of traditional Chinese paintings in an American pop music video.
Before I came to America to learn art, I spent one year studying journalism and photojournalism in China. That experience was very important for me because it developed my social consciousness. I now pay more attention to society when I make work, observing not only serious social issues but also relaxed street life. I like to consider the social value my work has when I do photography or new media. I don’t want my work to just be an art work that is just placed somewhere, I want my audience to be able to find some social meaning through my pieces.
I took the images in this exhibition when I traveled to the northwest of China earlier this year. It is a mysterious and vast land in China. Those pictures came from a deserted, old, small town in the gobi desert and grassland named A Kesai. Some people also call it the town of Petroleum, because they had rich oil resources but with radioactive elements. A Kesai has a high altitude which is about 9000 ft. The townspeople were herdsman but they all moved to big cities in 1980s because of the environment and urbanization to find the better life, and the town was abandoned. It is also the time that China began to open and reform. When I found this town down the road, I felt so shocked. I didn’t think it a worthless place. Although there are no people currently living there, we can find the traces of them everywhere, such as the ropey buildings, fragmentized glass and old furniture. I love to discover what these people’s occupations were through the “rubbish”. Urbanization is still happening now especially in developing countries. I want to through those images to show the marks of development and urbanization. However, with the development of urbanization, how do we respond to these old deserted towns? How many deserted towns have we not yet found?
Work
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