ChenXueling
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Shanghai Illusion
2021-2022
2021-2022
This body of work was created during the COVID lockdown in Shanghai. At the time, all activity had come to a halt. Life was confined to a repetitive loop of "room–kitchen–bathroom", and all social interaction took place online. Time became empty, stretched, and dull. From my windowsill, the distant highway stood still, and everything in view was motionless. The paralyzed city and the memories of pre-pandemic life flickered back and forth in my mind—eventually merging, collapsing into one another. Memory blurred; faces became voids. In the end, only the city remained, silent and hollow.
When I first arrived in Shanghai, I was immersed in the city's vibrant nightlife—working by day, partying by night. Within just two months, I met countless people. But unlike past, grounded relationships, "friendships" in Shanghai felt like fireworks: intense, dazzling, and abruptly extinguished. Nightlife offered an illusion of abundance, a fleeting euphoria of joy and connection, yet always underpinned by vulnerability and emptiness. These fragile, transient social bonds are everywhere in this city.
In the Shanghai Illusion series, many of the original files have been permanently lost due to digital storage glitches—mirroring the ambiguous, dreamlike quality of those nights. In the images that remain, I deliberately erase the main subjects using the simplest “delete” tool, leaving only faint outlines and spatial fragments. Through this act, I explore the confusion, instability, and emotional disorientation embedded in the contemporary condition of weakened social connection.