Canal park 运河公园
2021, 5-channel video installation, colour, sound, 2:30 min. 2021，五频道影像装置，彩色、有声，2分30秒。Preview. 预览。
In traditional Chinese cosmology and geology, land and waters are united in cosmic principles. However, in my investigations of hydraulic systems in the North China Plain, I realized that the separation of land and water, led by enclosed modern hydraulic infrastructures, has become dominant. In the 5-channel video work “Canal park,” I aim to symbolically evoke a sense of awareness about the possibility of going beyond the separation between land and water within the existing land-water hierarchies. To do so, I interweave my childhood memories of “water town” (水乡), my on-site experiences in the North Canal (北运河), as well as traditional Chinese cosmogenesis and aesthetics.
Today’s North Canal in the Tongzhou district of Beijing is no longer responsible for canal transportation and has become an urban landscape, namely a canal park. Meanwhile, the local real estate industry is turning the North Canal into a marketing tool by rendering it as a new representative of water town. Water town is a famous cultural symbol in the Chinese context, representing culturally rich and prosperous places characterized by the harmonious coexistence between humans, land, and water. However, during my fieldwork, I realized that the modernized hydraulic structures of today’s North Canal trend to separate land and water, rather than showing a harmonious coexistence between them.
Jiangnan region in the Yangtze River Delta, where my hometown is located, serves as a more traditional representative of the water town. However, my childhood memories of water town are not derived from the rivers in my hometown, which stank due to eutrophication during urbanization in the 1990s. Instead, these memories originate from my grandfather’s fish tank, or more precisely speaking, from the plastic water town decoration in it. These experiences and memories inspired me to create this video work.
Another inspiration comes from the local amphibious practice in the canal park. Waste materials from the construction of the viaducts were piled up on the riverbed below, which became a habitat for fish and gave rise to amphibious and even multi-species civic activities: recreational angling. This made me I realize that we can still find amphibious potential in established land-water hierarchies.
In “Canal park,” I transform the finite, enclosed space of the modern hydraulic structure into an infinite, interconnected space. From the imperceptible endpoint of the space under the viaduct at the center of each video, the images of the plastic water town landscape for the fish tank are generated, twisted, and rotated. This is inspired by the traditional Chinese cosmogenesis, in which Wuji (无极), referring to the most primordial state of the nothingness of the cosmos, gives birth to all things. In this work, the endpoint of the viaduct becomes the Wuji. The five bridge holes in the videos, filmed in Canal Park in Tongzhou District, hint at the Wuxing (five phases, 五行). In the traditional Chinese thoughts, the concept of the Wuxing is used to explain a wide array of phenomena, including cosmic cycles.
The dynamic perspectives and viewpoints, preferred by traditional Chinese landscape painters, are often realized through what Zong Baihua (宗白华) called the mind’s eye (心灵之眼), which wanders among the landscapes. Traditional Chinese landscape painters follow the wandering path of their mind’s eye to reorganize their meditative experiences of the landscape onto flat scrolls. In “Canal park,” the perspective of viewing the plastic water town decoration is also fluid, and the mountains become a kind of amphibious existence between liquid and solid.
在传统的中国宇宙观和地理学中，陆地和水域是统一于宇宙原则中的。然而，在我对华北平原水利系统的研究中，我意识到由封闭的现代水利基础设施主导的陆地与水域的分离已成为了主导。在五频道影像作品《运河公园》中，我试图象征性地引发人们对超越现有陆水分离的可能性的思考。为此，我融合了对“水乡”的童年回忆、我在北运河的现场经验，以及传统中国的宇宙生成论和美学理念。
如今位于北京通州区的北运河不再承担运河运输的职责，已成为一个城市景观，即运河公园。与此同时，当地房地产业通过将其作为新的水乡代表来将北运河转变为营销工具。水乡在中国语境中是一个著名的文化象征，代表着人类、陆地和水体和谐共存的繁荣之地。然而，在我的田野调查中，比起陆地与水域的和谐共存，我意识到今日北运河的现代化水利结构趋向于分离这两者。
我的家乡位于长江三角洲的江南地区，是水乡更为传统的代表。然而，我的水乡童年记忆并非来源于我家乡的河流，这些河流在90年代城市化进程变得富营养化。相反，这些记忆源自我祖父的鱼缸，或更确切地说，来自鱼缸中的塑料水乡装饰。这些经历和记忆激发了我创作这个影像作品。
另一个灵感来源于运河公园的地方两栖实践。高架桥的建设废料堆积在河床下，成为了鱼类的栖息地，引发了两栖性的，甚至是多物种的民间活动：娱乐性垂钓。这让我意识到我们仍然可以在既有的陆水等级制度中找到两栖潜力。
在《运河公园》中，我将现代水利结构的有限、封闭空间转化为无限、互联的空间。在每个影像的中心，鱼缸塑料水乡景观诞生于高架桥下不可见的空间终点，这些图像被生成、扭曲和旋转。在中国传统宇宙论中，无极指的是宇宙最原始的虚无状态，孕育万物。在这个作品中，高架桥的终点成为了无极。视频中的五个桥洞，拍摄于通州区的运河公园，暗示了五行。在传统的中国思想中，五行的概念被用来解释包括宇宙周期在内的广泛现象。
传统的中国山水画家常通过宗白华所谓的“心灵之眼”在山水中游走，并达成了一种动态的视角。跟随心灵之眼的游走路径，这些山水画家把对景观的冥想体验重新组织到平面的画卷之上。在《运河公园》中，观看塑料水乡装饰的视角也是流动的，山成为液体与固体之间的两栖性存在。