Roots
I was born in Shenyang, a typical industrial city in northeastern China.
In winter, the dry, cold air is always filled with the smell of something burning, as if someone is burning scraps in a corner—never fading, never gone. The sky is always gray, like dust covering the sun. When the weak sunlight manages to shine through, it reflects in random ways, dyeing the sky a pale pink.
Beneath this sky, a man-made river echoes with slow, heavy sounds. Alongside it, the old Manchurian railway, left behind by the Japanese, stretches into the distance. Freight trains move forward silently, dragging their carriages away.
After I left Shenyang, everything felt like the wind—it scattered, disappeared from my memory.
Even when I returned, I rarely picked up my camera. It was as if those places had never existed.
But somehow, time pulled me back. It took me four years to return.
During those years, while my steps were supposed to move forward, they slowly turned inward instead.
I kept trying to recall my hometown, but the more I imagined it, the blurrier it became. The more I longed for it, the further away it felt, like a distant projection, distorted and unreachable.
When I finally stood on my hometown’s land again, I realized that daylight hours had already taken up one-third of my life.
I was like a floating leaf, drifting on the surface of the water, without roots.
Maybe I needed to search for the memories I had lost.
So, I picked up my camera and started photographing my “Roots.”
Exhibition view at TOTEM POLE PHOTO GALLERY, 2024