TITLE: Qing
“Qing,” a sound in Mandarin Chinese, is, like most characters when pronounced in isolation, a homophone for various characters such as toppling, young, gentle, etc. When the sound "Qing" is uttered, numerous associations can be imagined, as different possibilities exist on the linguistic synchronic chain or the paradigmatic chain of language, with associative terms acting as substitutions for each other. Driven by this subjective nature of homophones, this project "Qing" mirrors diverse meanings emanating from collaged landscapes, encompassing sensations of dizziness, lightness, emptiness, and more. The elongated collage form attempts to symbolize this chain of homophonic feelings, with the aspect ratio resembling a prolonged progression, a film strip and a panoramic memory connecting various stills into a unified, extended memory.
Reflecting on this extension of memories and reminiscence, this project aims to both present and interrogate the temporal nuances within still images. While Eadweard Muybridge’s chronophotography captures and exhibits phases of motion for a moving object/animal, this project attempts to present the movement of a still scene and to reveal the gap within stillness in times, a gap that is created between the tangible world and that world of the memory. This temporal interstice is made possible by photography by capturing a slice of the present residing in the past that is forever a possession of the future. The heightened intensity of the instantaneous still moment magnifies and is intricately dissected into infinitesimally small strips and seamlessly weaved into the fabric of temporal nonlinearity.
AUTHOR: Matilda Peng (China)
Yueyang Peng, or Matilda, is currently pursuing her BA and BFA at Tufts University and the SMFA. Delving into the critical dimensions of the creative mind, her works have observed how the mind amplifies and selects moments to intricately weave the threads of human narratives—an endeavor to capture, recount, and document the fleeting emotions and visions that define our existence. Her works are also concerned with the intersection of personal and intergenerational memory, history, and narrative, as well as the blurred distinction between what is defined as reality and fiction. Using visual images as the basis of her creation, she records the contradiction between perpetual documentation and the futility of preservation. Her art is deeply informed by her literature study in poetry and poetic imagery as well. She has exhibited her works in ICA Boston, Gallery 263 in Cambridge M.A., and Leica Gallery in Boston, among others.
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