ChenXueling
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Flowing Room
2020-2022
2020-2022
"Flowing Room" is an art project that I embarked on while traveling around. Since my graduation, my life has been in a constant state of flow. As a group of young friends born after 1995, we no longer confine ourselves to one city. We frequently rendezvous in different cities and continue our journey together. We are like fish in the sea of the city, swimming through numerous cities in a year, making it almost impossible to predict where we'll be next month. I wanted to capture this sense of fluidity and blend it with images, creating a captivating visual representation of our contemporary nomadic lives."Flowing Room" is a project that merges visual storytelling with the essence of contemporary nomadic lives. Through my lens, I offer a glimpse into our fluid way of life, exploring the deep and emotional connection between our transient existence and our private spaces.
The project takes place within the intimate space of a "room," where the subject's state of mind flows with the conversation. It's an exploration of the delicate relationship between contemporary nomadic youth and their private spaces. I always ensure that the rooms I stay in are filled with photos I've taken, to create a sense of belonging and familiarity. I like to invite my friends to my room to relax, drink, take pictures, smoke, listen to music and watch movies. I hang pictures I've taken of them on the walls, transforming them into part of the "room."As a private space, the "room" is an ideal witness of private emotions. The space is cozy, soft, and warm, and that's why I love bringing my subjects into my home. Despite its small size, it doesn't hinder my ability to have meaningful conversations with my subjects. In a relaxed atmosphere, as the conversation deepens, the subject's state of mind begins to change. I use the camera to capture these moments, documenting a certain subtle relationship between the subject and the space.
Most of my photography practice is "immersive photography". I spend enough time with the subject, building enough trust, and start shooting. We share an emotional connection in the same space and time. I talk to them, capture their inadvertent movements and expressions, and stare at them in the picture in the flowing rooms. At the same time, I am also a part of this emotional atmosphere, dominating and intervening in their conversations and thoughts, but not appearing in the picture.
The work "Flowing Room" is a process from unfamiliarity to familiarity of the flowing rooms I have lived in, into a small space, and enriching it with friends from all over the world. I will miss every room I have lived in, but I know that when I take the photos away, they no longer belong to me. Countless immigrants like me in the city will soon move to the next room.
During my residency at the Quanzhou Art Exhibition, I opened the room I lived in to the public. Everyone is welcome to come in to sleep, take pictures, and become part of the "room". "Flowing Room" tries to break the boundary between private and public, let the private go to the public, and make the "room" a place where every audience can explore and rest. In addition, "Room" also creates a kind of private space in the public space. Under this free boundary, we cannot predict what kind of private behavior the audience will have in this separate space. Through the "peeping" of the camera in the room, we can further explore how the behavior transitions between public and private, as well as the ambiguity of the space itself.