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2022
This is a piece of an intimate confession to one of my favorite writers, philosopher, and poet, in response to the thesis “On the Concept of History” which has enlightened me with its sensitive melancholy interpretation of history.
“ Mein Flügel ist zum Schwung bereit,
ich kehrte gern zurück,
denn blieb ich auch lebendige Zeit,
ich hätte wenig Glück. “
“ My wing is ready for flight,
I would like to turn back.If I stayed
timeless time,
I would have little luck.”
Gerherd Scholem,
‘Gruss vom Angelus’
Ein Brief für Walter Benjamin: Der Engel ist aus Boten geboren, Oil on canvas, 41*53cm, 2022
“A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. ” (IX, On The Concept of History, Walter Benjamin)
Mr. Benjamin. Your angel was able to fly among the infinite sky. Unfortunately, our angel was born in the concrete-like monument, which are composed of the forgotten past, the solidified present and the self-repeating future. With its broken wings, trampled by the storm in the name of progress. The angel longs to be the crystal clear mirror, reflecting on our own behaviours and a flaming torch navigating us while we stumbling through the mist of unknown future. However our angel of history was born and immediately died in the concrete-like reality.
The Empty White Room: Pelosi’s Prophecy, Oil on canvas, 80*116cm, 2022
I have never experienced such an surrealistic absurdity in my life.
By the time when I received the message from a friend in China, I was traveling in Switzerland and ready to go home since it was the last two days of my three-month journey in Europe. She asked me whether I’m safe and how the situation is in Taiwan. It was supposed to be a peaceful morning, then out of a sudden, there were my country’s name appearing all over different news’ titles. Even my friend currently working in a museum in Schaffhausen told me about the fact that my country was being bombed and threaten and the situation did not sound well. It was the 2022 Chinese military exercises around Taiwan. And weirdly and sarcastically I was in Switzerland, which can possibly be the safest country in the entire world.
The 2022 Chinese military exercises around Taiwan were a series of military exercises by the People's Republic of China (PRC) that encircled Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC). They initially lasted from 4–7 August 2022 and involved live-fire drills, air sorties, naval deployments, and ballistic missile launches by the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The exercises started in response to US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
Der Bahnhof im Spiegel, 60*80cm, 2022Meanwhile my flight was delayed, due to the military demonstration. I couldn’t feel more alienated as the panic attacked. The dazzling sunlight reflected on surrounding white walls and tears of fear blurred my eye sight. The empty white room was trembling as if it’s ready to collapse and suffocates me at anytime. I dreamt of war red as blood, outside the empty white room.I felt like my soul is old enough to miss home.
