Wenxuan Wang, born in Shandong, China. Now works and lives in London. She graduated from Communication University of China in 2014 with a B.A. in Photography. And now she is studying in MA Photography at Royal College of Art. Her research delves into the corrective interventions of past events and the unconscious that derives from human experiences. With aspects of archiving, genealogy and identity all being the pillars of her practice, She arranges the recreated-images to construct an alienated narrative and attempts to reconstruct the dialogue between past events and dynamic identities.
Back to Nowhere
How can we go back home?
“In Back to Nowhere (2020), I selectively photographed the areas where I lived, mainly places that I have a sense of familiarity to, but which have been abandoned or rebuilt due to gentrification as if everything that had been solid had vanished. The juxtaposition of the photographic survey of these locations and archival family images is a way of questioning my own response: to paraphrase Bataille, the repression and pain come from a shock, a shock at recognizing our limitations, a shock at the destruction and end of original experiences. My project aims to explore how the nesting of family archives and environment exposes the strangeness and loss of control of a sense of boundaries in an oppressive environment.
By destroying the images themselves as a means of reflecting on family history and addressing psychological issues, I try to smudge the reality of time, memory, and normal narrative. After my manipulation, the images begin to disintegrate, revealing a landscape inhabited by the ghosts. In a way, I fell into the limbo between reality and fantasy: a false emotional attachment. The review of the archive of family images is more like an inward questioning of how to escape the barren emptiness that hides behind the curtain.”
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