A Marble Travelogue
Video Installation Version
石史诗
录像装置版
A white marble slab, freshly hewn from a quarry in Greece’s Peloponnesus, embarks on a journey akin to the heroes of Homeric epics. Crossing oceans to the farthest reaches of the East, it arrives at China’s steel-clad factories, where, like a warrior beneath the walls of Troy, it endures relentless chiseling, hammering, and pulverization. From its fragmented remains, however, emerges a pristine Greek goddess destined to grace the neoclassical marvels scattered across China’s vast landscapes. Together, these sculptures and edifices stand as colossal tributes along the Eastern horizon, recreating a Hellenistic realm across the seas.
(2024), a four-channel 30-minute video installation
In this twenty-first-century Iliad, the polished marble reflects not only the faces of a globalized production chain but also the relentless drive of an era hurtling forward at breakneck speed.
This four-screen video installation is an extension of the feature-length film A Marble Travelogue. While it incorporates some footage from the film, the majority comprises unseen materials that couldn’t fit within the linear narrative of the original. Unlike the feature, this iteration employs a non-linear, sensory, atmospheric, and depersonalized editing style. At its heart lies a reassembled visual log of the marble’s journey, crafted through techniques such as symmetry and juxtaposition.
The installation is housed on a hollow cubic structure—a 4m x 4m x 4m foam replica of a giant marble block—placed in the exhibition space. The synchronized projections on the cube’s four facades immerse the audience in the marble’s odyssey. By embedding the imagery of material and space within this monumental object, the work amplifies its exploration of the "object" as a thematic focus, while the enclosed environment intensifies the physicality of the piece.
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2024 solo exhibition The World. The Park. at Fang Suo Commune (Beijing, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Sanya)
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