林可诗：未来信
策展人：骆钰槟
策展助理：高桢桢
项目支持：许冰煌
展览时间：2024.11.24-12.24
可诗（艺术家）的创作经历过一次小小的转变。她曾经在影像作品《去桃源》中加入了一些文史资料、档案照片和官方纪录片片段，穿插在外婆讲述的间隙。而此次展出的版本中，这些带有“佐证”意味的素材都已删去，作品中流露的情感也由此变得愈加连绵和细腻。
提及这个创作过程中的细节，是因为我认为这个思考过程很有代表性。作为研究者，在进行口述史工作时，我们不可避免地需要寻求尽可能多的视角和旁证，去确认一个事件的全貌和真实性；作为一个家庭内部的成员，许多人也往往很难在第一时间相信家中女性长辈的讲述，纵使相信，也可能会在转述时有所迟疑。
历史是由什么建构的？知识、档案以及宏大叙事背后的权力结构，令我们在不知不觉中让渡出了表达的主体性与正当性。在这个项目中，艺术家摄录的外婆、母亲以及受访的越南华人，他们的讲述既不是证明一段历史的材料，也无须由更多的历史资料来进一步地佐证。他们的生命经验和个体记忆，首先因其自身的存在而真实、鲜活。他们的讲述，因而成为一个入口，联通跨时代、跨地域、跨文化的想象与感知。
展览“未来信”主要围绕着艺术家家中四代人的经历和故事展开。前文提到的作品《去桃源》是整个项目的原点，故事的主人翁傅庄治是串联所有故事的关键人物。她是艺术家的外婆，是母亲和女儿，也是一位坚韧、要强、主动掌握自己命运的女性工人。在影像中，提及逃往越南、杳无音讯的父亲，庄治从不掩饰自己的怒与怨；听说炸药厂招收工人，庄治毫不犹豫地说“我要去”；随着工厂在“小三线建设”【1】的政策下迁离家乡，庄治在集体主义的封闭小社会中工作、育儿、老去.黑白胶卷作品《没有一条通往外面的路》是艺术家在陪伴外婆捡拾废品的途中所拍摄。外婆捡拾的地点恰好是艺术家儿时的学校。一条象征着经济发展和时代剧变的高速铁路横跨而过，高架下的校园成为废墟、工地、垃圾场。在艺术家的记忆中，她在这所厂子弟学校就读的时间里，自己的母亲也正经历着人生的转折。装置作品《红姐》是艺术家和其母亲的记忆碎片，从幼师到车间工人，粗重的体力活与危险的工作环境将一个单身母亲围困在时代的囹圄中。
“为何一去不回头？”带着对外婆父亲经历的追问，艺术家前往越南胡志明市，与越南家人相处了一周。在影像《安南未来信》中，起初为了索求答案的艺术家，转而寄出了一封“未来信”，给外婆的父亲捎去了来自故乡的消息。《三只船，九十九个弯》则是艺术家走访胡志明市第五区的华人时拍摄的照片和记录影像，呈现了艺术家由己及人地对越南华人群体境遇的整体关切。
展览标题包含了“未/来信”与“未来/信”两层意涵，既指涉艺术家的外婆从未收到过父亲的来信，亦指艺术家在时间的此端给已离世的外太公的去信。两段相互交织的迁徙故事，也由一封原乡来信连接——是一封曾经从桃源村寄出的信，让越南的亲人辗转找到了外婆。信，意味着距离与分别。一张薄薄的纸片可延展出无限时空。信是私密的，也是公共的。在华人华侨史研究中，无数的侨批成为今天公立博物馆的重要收藏。而这一点，恰与我们今天讨论家庭史的价值相契合。
文 / 骆钰槟
【1】“三线建设”发生于 1964 年至 1980 年间，是一场基于国防军事背景的区域工业化运动。“三线”是一个相对于沿边沿海的“一线”地区的地理概念。
A Letter Never Arrived—Karen Lin Keshi
Curator: Cora Luo Yubin
Curatorial Assistant: Gao Zhenzhen
Project Support: Xu Binghuang
Exihibition Period: 2024.11.24- 12.24
There has been a subtle transformation in Karen's video-making. In the earlier version of Journey to Tao Yuan, Karen included historical materials, archival photographs, and clips from official documentaries in between her grandmother's narrations. In the version presented this time, however, such 'corroborative' materials have been removed. The sentiments conveyed through the video have become more seamless and delicate.
I am highlighting this detail of the creative process because I think it is representative of the thinking process. As researchers engaged in oral history, we inevitably look for as many perspectives and corroborating evidence as possible in order to develop the full picture and verify the authenticity of an event. As members within a family, we often find it difficult to immediately trust the accounts of the elderly women in the family. Even when we do, there may be slight hesitation in recounting these stories to others.
What is history constructed from? The structures of knowledge, archives, and the power dynamics behind grand narratives often result in relinquishing our agency and legitimacy in expression unknowingly. In this project, the accounts recorded by the artist — from her grandmother, mother, and interviewed Vietnamese Chinese — are neither materials meant to validate a segment of history nor require further corroboration from additional historical documents. Their life experiences and personal memories are authentic and vivid by virtue of their very existence. Their narratives, therefore, become a portal that connects imagination and perception transcend generations, geographies, and cultures.
The exhibition A Letter Never Arrived centers on the experiences and stories of four generations of the artist's family. Journey to Tao Yuan is where the entire project starts, with its protagonist, Fu Zhuangzhi, as the central figure connecting all the stories. Zhuangzhi, Karen's grandmother and a mother and daughter herself, is a resilient, strong-willed female worker who took charge of her own destiny. In the video, when she mentions her father, who fled to Vietnam and disappeared without a trace, she never hides her anger and resentment. When she heard a dynamite factory was recruiting, she jumped to the opportunity without hesitation. When the factory was eventually relocated under the government’s 'Small Third Front Construction' policy [1], she became confined to a closed collectivist micro-society where she continued to work, raised her children, and grew old. Karen filmed the black-and-white There is No Path Leading Out while accompanying her grandmother on her way to collect recyclables. The location happens to be Karen's childhood school. A high-speed railroad, emblematic of economic development and drastic changes of the times, now cuts across the school, which has since become a deserted place, a construction site, and a garbage dump under the elevated structure. In her recollections, Karen attended this factory-affiliated school at a time when her mother was going through something life-changing. The installation Hong Jie is a collection of Karen and her mother's fragmented memories of her mother's transition from a kindergarten teacher to a factory worker, when a single mother was entrapped by grueling manual labor and a dangerous working environment within the constraints of the era.
'Why did you never come back?' Driven by a desire to understand what happened to her great-grandfather, Karen set off for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where she spent a week with her Vietnam-based relatives. In the video A Letter Never Arrived, Karen, who initially wanted to look for answers to the past, instead sends 'a letter from the future' carrying news from the homeland to her great-grandfather. Three Boats Across the Sea, on the other hand, consists of photographs and footage captured during the artist's visit to the Chinese community in District 5 of Ho Chi Minh City. On display is the artist's concern for the broader circumstances of the Vietnamese Chinese community, extending her personal reflections to a collective understanding.
The exhibition's title in Chinese is a play on words with dual meanings: 'never sent a letter' in that Karen’s grandmother never received any letter from her father all this time, and 'a letter from the future' referring to the letter Karen sent to her late great-grandfather this time. These two intertwined migration stories are in fact connected by a letter from the homeland — a letter sent from Taoyuan Cun that eventually helped Karen's relatives in Vietnam to locate her grandmother. The letter symbolizes distance and separation. A thin piece of paper can be extended into infinite space and time. A letter is both private and public. In the study of Chinese diaspora history, countless qiaopi [2]have become important collections in public museums today. This is in perfect alignment with the value of family history in our discussion today.
By Cora Luo Yubin
Translated by Qiu Shuang
[1] The Third Front Construction was a Chinese government campaign to develop industrial and military facilities in the country's interior. "Third Front" is a geo-military concept: it is relative to the "First Front" area that is close to the potential war fronts. The "Small Third Front" referred to rugged or remote areas within provinces like Fujian, in contrast to the "Big Third Front," which referred to the Northwest and Southwest provinces of the country.
[2] letters, reports, account books and remittance receipts between Chinese emigrants overseas and their families in China
《去桃源》 | 高清彩色有声影像（闽南语、普通话）
Journey to Tao Yuan | color HD video with sound (Minnan dialect, Mandarin Chinese) | 37' 52" | 2022-2024
《没有一条通往外面的路》 | 黑白胶卷摄影 | 20幅，尺寸可变
There is No Path Leading Out | black-and-white film photography | set of 20, dimensions variable | 2023
《安南未来信》| 复制文献、信封、复制家庭照片、麻袋、高清彩色有声影像（越南语、普通话、闽南语）
A Letter Never Arrived | reproduction of archives, envelope, reproduction of family photo, jute bag, color HD video with sound (Vietnamese, Mandarin Chinese, Minnan dialect) | 26' 32" | 2024
《三只船，九十九个弯》| 摄影、高清彩色有声影像（普通话、闽南话）| 19幅，尺寸可变
Three Boats Across the Sea | photography, color HD video with sound (Mandarin Chinese, Minnan dialect) | set of 19, dimensions variable | 13' 16" , 7' 30" | 2024
林可诗（Karen）
影像创作者、独立策展人，生活、工作于广州。
出生于福建永安，成长于一个山林中的小三线工厂，在那里度过了人生的前十五年。2019年硕士毕业于中国美术学院设计史专业，在艺术机构工作了近三年，而后开始寻找新的实践的可能。2022年加入社实SPL，开始关注发生在社会现场的艺术实践并策划与之相关的公共项目。与此同时，她以家族中的故事为线索开始影像记录与创作，对她来说这是一种反抗“理所当然”的麻木日常的实践，也是“努力记住那些已被忘记之事物”的行动。
骆钰槟
策展人、艺术工作者，生活、工作于广州。
她关注被宏大历史和社会结构遮蔽或压抑的个体表达，支持作为一种行动方式的艺术实践。中国美术学院设计学硕士，目前就职于广州美术学院美术馆。曾工作于中国美术学院中国国际设计博物馆、上海外滩美术馆、上海昊美术馆。参与策划、执行的展览包括：“榴莲·榴莲：作为方法论的区域艺术研究”（2023）；“翻山越海：刘博智缅甸华人文化摄影展”（2021/2023）；“对参与式艺术的两种回应”（2022）；“迁徙的包豪斯——设计生活”（2018）。
高桢桢
艺术研究者，生活、学习于广州。
近期主要聚焦于粤港澳地区，尤其是广州的替代空间研究。同时进行写作创作，尤其是诗歌和服装流动相关的实践探索。中山大学硕士在读。
Karen Lin Keshi
Video practitioner, independent curator based in Guangzhou, China
Born in Yong'an, Fujian, Karen grew up in a Small Third-Front factory nestled in the mountains, where she spent the first fifteen years of her life. In 2019, she earned a master's degree in Design History and Theory from China Academy of Art, and worked in art institutions for nearly three years before beginning to explore new possibilities for art practices. In 2022, she joined Social Practice Lab (SPL), where she started focusing on social practice art and curated several related public projects. At the same time, she began to experiment with video making, using stories from her family as a thread. For herself, this is a practice of resisting the numbness of the daily life, and an effort to remember the things that have been forgotten.
Cora Luo Yubin
Curator, researcher based in Guangzhou, China
She focuses on individual expression that has been obscured or silenced by grand narrative and social structures, and she considers art practices as activism. Cora currently works at Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. She received a Master’s degree in Design History and Theory from China Academy of Art, and formerly worked at China Design Museum of CAA, Shanghai Rockbund Art Museum, and How Art Museum (Shanghai). Her past curatorial and produced exhibitions include "Durian Durian: Southeast Asian Studies as a Methodology" (2023); "Overland and Oversea: Pok Chi Lau’s Cultural Photography Exhibition of Chinese in Myanmar"(2021 / 2023); "Does It Matter that We’ve Just Met, If Our Hearts Understand: Two Responses to Social Practice" (2022); "Bauhaus Imaginista: Moving Away" (2018).
Gao Zhenzhen
Art researcher, living and studying in Guangzhou.
Recently focused on research into alternative spaces in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao region, especially in Guangzhou. She is also involved in writing and artistic endeavors, with a focus on poetry and fashion-related practices. Gao is currently pursuing her master’s degree at Sun Yat-sen University.