Wound
Pattern
The series of work are constructed upon collages of Ernst Ohlmer’s photographs of the ruined Yuanmingyuan, taken after China’s war with the European allied forces in 1860. After their publication, local photographers began to follow suit, giving rise to the emergence of a transnational visual culture of ruins in China. By painting lines with cooked rice along the architectural structures remaining in the ruins, I ‘translate’ the traumatic memory of a country forced into modernity and the invisible gaze of the invader into tangible patterns of wounds.
The series of work are constructed upon collages of Ernst Ohlmer’s photographs of the ruined Yuanmingyuan, taken after China’s war with the European allied forces in 1860. After their publication, local photographers began to follow suit, giving rise to the emergence of a transnational visual culture of ruins in China. By painting lines with cooked rice along the architectural structures remaining in the ruins, I ‘translate’ the traumatic memory of a country forced into modernity and the invisible gaze of the invader into tangible patterns of wounds.
