Endurance 永恒

I have always been mesmerized by the act of making marks, traces or records. However, it is an unspoken truth that on a grand scale, nothing lasts forever. Yet despite the inevitable erosive power of Nature and time, humans nevertheless try to hold onto their lives and transcend death through means of mark making. Such a seemingly futile act evokes an indescribable sense of awe and respect in me.

In ‘Endurance,’ my series of cyanotype and Van Dyke Brown prints, I placed ice cubes, burning papers, candles along with other ephemeral objects on coated papers underneath the sun to capture traces of their existence. The title comes from the name of the spacecraft in the Christopher Nolan film “Interstellar.” In one scene, after being told by the computer that his plan to rescue the falling “Endurance” is not possible, the protagonist Cooper decides to try anyway. To me, this beautifully idealistic mindset to undertake the impossible is what makes us human, and this is exactly what I want to embody through this work.

一直以来，我都对留下记录或痕迹的动作异常着迷。不过，一个心照不宣的事实是，在时间的长河上，没有什么事物能够获得永恒。然而，纵使人类很清楚自然和时间拥有着无法抵抗的侵蚀力量，我们仍然持续留痕，试图留住我们的生命、超越死亡。这种表面上看起来愚公移山的行为却给予了我极大的震撼。

在我的系列蓝晒和凡戴克棕相片《永恒》中，我将冰块，燃烧的纸和蜡烛等稍纵即逝的物品放在纸上曝光，以捕捉它们存在的痕迹。系列的名字来源于克里斯托弗 · 诺兰电影《星际穿越》中的同名宇宙飞船。片中有一桥段，当被电脑告知其拯救正在坠落的「永恒号」飞船的计划是不可能完成的之后，主人公库珀毅然决然地选择尝试。 我认为，这般凄美的试图挑战不可能之事的纯粹理想主义精神正是使得人类能够成为人类之物，这也是我想在这组作品中表达的。

Mediums: Cyanotype and Van Dyke Brown on paper

Year: 2024