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The Remnants of Yesterday bridges two materials—porcelain and gelatine silver that both embrace timelessness in unfolding the tactility of memory. The work presents the delicate relations between attempts to recall and the memories one could hold on to.

 

The cheongsam, a traditional garment of Chinese women, of my grandmother weaves a poetic connection between my family history and the history of Hong Kong’s textile industry in the old days. My grandfather owned a small textile factory in Kowloon City in the 1960-70s. Beautiful clothes are exported to America and worldwide. Grandmother would use the fabric remnants to make clothes for herself and the family. The project takes a micro-perspective to weave a family narrative into the social-historical fabric connected to post-war Hong Kong garment exports around the globe. 

 

Having found the very cheongsam patched together from odds and ends by my grandmother in the first family portrait from the album, I pressed it against a thin clay slab indexically imprinting each crease of the fabric. I transformed the photographic process into actions of tracing, recording and rewriting. The work echoes that of grandma's daily practice of flipping the same photo album over and over in an attempt to recall her fading memory. Regarding the porcelain plate as a memory matrix, I developed it into a series of gelatine silver photograms in a range of shades. The repetition weaves the images into an abstract memory scape with an x-ray impression, gelatine silver prints by darkroom solarisation technique, unveiling the fluidity and fragility of memory.

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憶

2022

瓷片、銀鹽相印

相：38.6 x49.8cm （一組21張）

瓷：26x37.5cm

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外婆遺失了記憶，一本相簿反覆看了又看，務要記起自己以及平生最親近的人。把昨日重看一遍，補充明日記憶的空白。

 

我以相簿中第一張全家幅作參照。相中的外婆當天所穿的長衫，是她以家中的碎布所自家縫製。這物載有外婆平生作為母親、照顧者的身份與角色。

 

我把這長衫於瓷⽚上以壓印的⽅式作記錄，把痕跡化做⼀道光，烙印於銀鹽相紙之上。

 

瓷和相皆有存留⾄永久之意。我以這物質互換的過程，於記錄與消減之間，呈現記憶（名詞）與回憶（動詞）之間的關係與脆弱。

 

記憶非獨立存在，是所對應之事物的⼀個倒影。風流動，倒影模糊了。

 

 

 

Image courtesy of Tai Kwun Contemporary. Photo: Kwan Sheung Chi.
圖片由大館當代美術館提供。展場攝影：關尚智