Modern Slums
It's a special time of transition, the time I grew up in.
I was born in 1997 when the world was about to enter the year 2000. The 1960s to the 2000s were the early years of New China when people then wanted to start from zero and get rid of all traditional things. Countless cultural heritages were damaged, and things went crazy at that time.
However, the values that people have formed for thousands of years were hard to change. So this is a period of time full of contradictions and conflicts. If we can’t face the past, we can’t make progress.
The scene inside Modern Slums is full of Chinese modern architecture. You can see that there is barely any characteristic of Chinese traditional architecture that can be found here. Even some roofs and the words on the billboard which you can find some elements about Chinese traditional culture are also the false embodiment of these real traditional cultures.
In Meng-Hua…
Many want to hastily abandon the past and welcome the future, but we are creatures of the past. We cannot abandon is past, as it is part of who we are. Abandoning the past won’t get us to our destination but would only leave us confused forgetting who we are. Without the past, we have no place to stand. The connection between the past and the future is what we need to have.
The ship has the effect of connecting the two sides of the land, in this scenario, connecting the past and future. Also, the ship is heading to the section of Look Back, which implies we have to face and accept our traditional culture correctly so that we can move toward the future in a better way.
The speed at which society evolves, causing contradiction, conflicts, and progress coming and going in waves, with various stories riding on them.
The screen I use to display Modern Slums is from the cinema. The special era from the 1960s to 2000s, when contradictions and conflicts have been filled, was like the plot of a common movie. That’s why I made it look like a movie theater. To fit this scene, the ship I used here is a pleasure boat, and its look didn’t reference the true ancient pleasure boat, but reference modern pleasure boat in China, in order to compare with the ancient looks in the section of Look Back.