朱湘1991年出生於電白縣，畢業於廣州美術學院油畫系，現生活、工作於廣州。

個展：W.A.S.T.E（2017，廣州，Findart）；“你今日影像未？/社區記憶術”個人項目展（2019，廣州，你我空間）。群展：啁·啾——藝術紮營（2019坪山美術館，深圳）；鐘樓褶皺—方志小說駐地聯展（2019，西安，碧山供銷社）/白灼圖書館——方志小說聯合駐地展（2019廈門白灼空間）中間實踐/紙本·設色：關懷與趣味（2018，北京，中間美術館）；海面之下是火山（2018，北京，博而勵畫廊實驗空間）等。駐地：方志小說聯合駐地（2019，廈門沙坡尾）；2020歌德學院X緩存空間駐留項目（2020，北京，緩存空間）。

2019年她加入新造小組，同時基於新造空間（MakingSpace）展開工作，小組的討論與激發讓她投入新的學習形態中。對於她來說，在歷史和虛構間隙裡，將自己當做“拾荒者”開展實踐和行動，在面對“記憶恐慌”形成的個體生命線如何能再次開口言說，一直是工作的主線。近年她對“家庭史”進行研究，重新看向記憶割裂、空白、錯漏之處，而非大歷史背景下講述得足夠好的故事，同時也嘗試與個體的聯繫中去展開記憶工作，包括口述記錄、社區活動、工作坊、行走等。個體與地方緊密的關係如流域般層疊和流動，她認為抵抗遺忘更需要從不可歸檔之物的挖掘開始，在重重縈繞身邊的迷霧中出行，在吞沒中繼續發現和想像。

 

Zhu Xiang was born in Dianbai in 1991 and graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. She currently lives and works in Guangzhou.

Solo exhibition: W.A.S.T.E (2017, Guangzhou, Findart); “Did you take a photo today?/Community Memory” program exhibition (2019, Guangzhou, You and Me Space).

Group Exhibitions: Tweet and Tweet-Art Camp (2019, Shenzhen, Pingshan Art Museum); Gazetteer-Novel’s Joint Residency Group Exhibition (Fold Of The Bell Tower, 2019, Xi’an, Bishan Crafts Cooperatives / BJOY LIBRARY-Gazetteer-Novel Joint Exhibition, 2019, Xiamen BJOYSpace); Inside-Out Practice/Stacks of Paper·Riot of Color: The politics of Taste (2018, Beijing, Inside-Out Art Museum); There are volcanoes under the sea (2018, Beijing, BLG LAB ), etc.

Residency: Gazetteer-Novel Joint Residency Program (2019, Shapowei, Xiamen); 2020 Goethe-Institut x Cache Space Residency (2020, Beijing, Cache Space).

In 2019, she joined Xinzao Collective and started to work in association with Making Space. The discussion and inspiration she got from the collective have also provided her with a new method of learning. It has long been a central theme of her practice to act as a “chiffonnier” in the gap between history and fiction, and to speak out when facing the “memory panic” of individual life stories. In recent years, she has been researching her “family history” and revisiting the conflicts, blanks, and errors of memory, rather than the well-told stories in the context of a bigger history. She tries, at the same time, to work on memory in connection with individuals, including oral history documentation, community-based activities, workshops, city walks, etc.

The close relationship with individuals and places is layered and fluid like a basin, she believes that to resist the forgetting, which needs to be excavated from the unarchivable, to walked through the thick fog surrounding her, and continued to discover and imagine from the engulfing.

 

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重思歷史的空白、錯漏與遺忘

 

似乎面對歷史和記憶的主題，家庭史在我們身邊更具形象、更易觸碰，但我對此並不樂觀，因為過去發生了卻已忘記——記憶在權力之下又以何種速度、何種樣態被遺忘和建構？我試圖從「無名者的家庭史」項目中重思文革歷史的空白、錯漏與遺忘面對這個問题。

#梳理和挖掘：我作為後來者，再去回看這些「家庭記憶」時，我需要明白家庭成員書寫的文字和表達的口述如何在特定的歷史語境下生成，因為當每一份申請書都必須交予地方政府審批，親人必須「謹慎」書寫記憶。目前手稿資料僅是母親的家庭，在整理期間我非常在意外婆的角色，她既是外公、理舅記憶的保存者又是書寫者，也作為倖存者肩負起破碎的家庭。而父親的家庭，現在並沒有爺爺留存的資料。

○  留存的手稿資料（信件、日記、政治文書等等）掃描成電子版。不要只是當成閱讀材料，不去區分哪些無關重要，一些細節的字眼和情緒都可以去關注，包括碎紙寫下的內容；

○  沒有留存資料的情況，除了聽親人的口述，嘗試去到亡者曾經生活工作的地方。當找到相關的受訪者，可以準備當地地圖、照片和文字資料，因為大多數鄉鎮的歷史圖像和資料都缺乏，嘗試收集有相似性的。

 

在歷史運動後，親人已經得到平反，但這些所謂「歷史記憶」其實都支離破碎，因為必須交予官方驗證。在大歷史的書寫中，個人記憶和情感造成的壓抑會被無視。除了面向家庭的歷史，我也有超出自身能力的計劃——圍繞家鄉武鬥進行口述記錄的工作，因為文革時期鄉鎮集體殺戮的地方資料普遍性地缺失。

○  允許自己有超出能力的計劃，慢慢去學習；

○  在鄉鎮大都是依靠熟人關係，點對點聯繫受訪人，我現在進程也很緩慢；

○  在採訪過程中，提醒自己對參與者的「傷害」是否會出現，對話的實踐應該是鬆動和喚起，不應是強制的提問；

○  盡量鬆動的採訪環境，有時並不可能是完美的採訪環境，也可以選擇較安靜的公共場所，和受訪者一起步行和交談；

○  面對受訪者，先傾聽和交談，而不是先打開攝像鏡頭。

 

#行走和重返：在縣內主要的行走計劃是關於家庭成員的死亡地點和武鬥發生的場所，同時也有地點的重返——理舅的死亡地點「鬱頭鵝渡橋」。

○  相信「直覺」的本能；

○  行走也成為從身體轉化到感知的重要部分，我需要在文獻或者口述之外的呼吸空間，它像是時間的夾層，「奇遇」也會在此發生；

○  如果是和當地的受訪者一起同行也很好，他/她會指認一些位置和描述過去的樣子，陌生感逐漸減弱，交談中理解和感受；

○  有些地點必然是數次重返。

 

#回應：作為藝術工作者，時常要面臨的問題是如何轉換具體、形象的視覺感受，讓觀者能感同身受，但我也有一種私心所在：在工作的過程，聽到親人、採訪者、朋友最多談話是「XX是否活著」的提問，我很恍然，其實在面向歷史的工作也是面向亡者。允許自己慢一點，反思會讓回應慢慢顯現，提示我要做的事情。

○  我試圖能在項目工作裏保持研究和實踐的聯繫；

○  沒有展開相關創作前，每當行走和資料累積到節點，我需要一段冷靜的時期。可能在於複雜和碎片化的信息作用下，文字工作或許能讓我找到邊界感：我能做什麼，不是急於要做什麼。

 

我虛構了外公成功逃跑後寫給外婆的一封信件。兩個月後，讓我震驚的是，在外婆的房間裏，我讀到一封真實的信件，竟和虛構的信件在內容上如此一致，同樣是問候關心，同樣是孩子的婚姻問題，同樣是勸說孩子不要參加武鬥……

○  歷史和記憶工作必然面對自己當下的情感，並不是要記錄他人為目的，有句話我一直覺得很受用，就是和他/她一起處於時間之流裡連結和工作。

 

在過去的24個月中，藝術創作出現停滯是我一直無法與親人的疾病共處，如何去平衡工作確實讓我很困擾，因為每次爆發都需要更大的心力去處理生活上瑣碎的事情。

○  與「疾病」共處是漫長的學習過程，真的沒有立刻見效的解決辦法；

○  我說，也許面向「記憶」的工作可以輔助自己的生存意志，聽起來像玩笑，但我希望它像一個永動機，不斷地供需我的能量；

○  誠實地面對自己的困境，為自己留一個「安全出口」——理解自己。

 

Rethinking the Void, Inaccuracy and Forgetfulness

 

It seems that when we encounter themes of history and memory, family history is more visible and accessible to us, but I am not optimistic about this because the past has been forgotten – under the influence of power, how and at what speed would memory be constructed and forgotten? I try to rethink the void, inaccuracy and forgetfulness of the Cultural Revolution history in the context of my project Family History of the Unknown.

 

#In the process of organising and discovering: As a latecomer, when I look back at these ‘family memories’, I need to understand how the written words and oral expressions of family members were generated in a specific historical context. When each application had to be submitted to the local government for approval, the relatives had to be ‘careful’ in writing their memories. The manuscripts are only about my mother’s family. I pay a lot of attention to my grandma’s role, she is both the memory keeper and writer, and as a survivor of a broken family. There is no material about my grandfather on my father’s side.

○  Scan the surviving manuscript materials [letters, diaries, political documents, etc.] and turn them into digital files. Pay attention to the details of words and emotions, including the contents of the scrap paper, instead of just treating it as reading material and distinguishing what is not important;

○  In the absence of surviving material, apart from listening to the relatives, try to visit the places where the deceased once lived and worked. When you find relevant interviewee, you can prepare maps, photos and written materials of the area, as most historical images and information are no longer available in those village towns, try to collect similar ones.

 

After the historical movement, the relatives have been rehabilitated, but these so-called ‘historical memories’ were actually fragmented because they had to be submitted to the official for verification. In the historical narrative of authority, the suppression of personal memories and emotions is often ignored. Apart from researching family history, I have a plan that may go beyond my capacity – in general, there is a lack of local information on the mass killings in the villages during the Cultural Revolution, and I will be collecting oral history of those clashes of arms in my hometown.

○  Allow yourself to plan beyond your capacity and take your time to learn;

○  Most of the interviewees in the village towns need to be connected by acquaintances on a point-to-point basis, which is a slow process for me now;

○  During the interview，I remind myself that the ‘harm’ to the participant will not occur, the practice of dialogue should be relaxing and evocative, not a forced question;

○  To maintain a relaxing interview environment as possible, sometimes it is not the perfect interview setting, or you can choose a quieter public place to walk and talk with the interviewee;

○  When interviewing, listen and chat first, rather than turning on the camera in the beginning.

 

Walking and Returning: The main walks in the county are planned to be about the places where family members died and the clashes took place, along with a return to the place – ‘Yutoue Bridge’ where Uncle Li died.

○  I believe in ‘intuition’;

○  Walking has also become an important part of the transition from the body to the senses, and I need breathing space outside of records or oral history, which is like a void of time, where ‘strange encounters’ can happen;

○  It is also good to walk with a local interviewee, he/she will identify some locations and describe the past, the sense of unfamiliarity will gradually diminish, and the conversation will be understanding and feeling;

○  I need to return to some locations multiple times.

 

#Echoing：As an artist, the problem that I often encounter is how to transform the concrete and imaginary visual experience, so that I can share with the viewers, but I also have a kind of selfishness: in the course of my work, the most common conversation I hear from family members, interviewees, and friends is to ask the question of whether or not XX is alive, and it comes to clarity, that works about history is also about the dead. I allow myself to slow down a bit, reflection will make the response slowly appear, remind me what I have to do.

○  I try to maintain a linkage between research and practice in my project;

○  Before I start a relevant creation, I need a period of calmness whenever the walking and data accumulation reaches a node. Perhaps with the complexity and fragmentation of information, working with texts may allow me to find a sense of boundary: what I can do, not what I am in a hurry to do.

 

I wrote a fictitious letter to my grandmother after my grandfather’s successful escape, two months later, I was shocked that I found a letter in my grandmother’s room that was so identical to my fictional one, the same greetings of concern, also about the children’s marriage issues, the same advice to the children not to participate in the Violent Struggle…

○  Working with history and memory necessarily confronts one’s own emotion in the present moment, and is not intended to be a record of others, there is a saying that I strongly agree with, which is to connect and work with him/her in the stream of time.

 

In the past 24 months, artmaking has been stagnant because I have not been able to live with my loved one’s illness, and it has really bothered me how to balance my work, because each outburst requires more mental energy to deal with life’s trivialities. 

○  Living with ‘illness’ is a longer learning process, there is really no immediate solution;

○  I said that perhaps working with ‘memory’ strengthens my will to live, it sounds like a joke, but I want it to be a perpetual motion machine that constantly supplies me with energy;

○  It is important to be honest with one’s predicament, and to keep a ‘safe exit’- to understand oneself.

 

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文章 Article

 

關於“無名者的家庭史”項目，我並非要寫一部“家庭歷史”，而是著力追尋大歷史的敘述之下，造成空白、遺失和錯漏的記憶，以及造成這些記憶背後的權力留下了什麽痕跡，能與現下歷史的空洞，進行結構性的分析和呈現。或許剛開始，僅能是通過行走、寫作、影像、口述記錄開展第一部分的工作，並非先推進視覺化的作品。我希望的是能用自己身體力行的方法，去理解與回應現下被壓抑的問題。

在父母雙方家庭中都有親人死於60年代那場運動，如今家庭成員對他們的描述已經變得模糊，有很多可以追踪的線索，到了我這一代已然在被遮蔽的困境中。但我仍想追問的並不是一個確定的結果，而是現實為何會這般存在，細碎的線索會指引看向什麼方向，會發生怎樣的過程，會有多少疑惑、解惑，在這點上我始終相信“無名者”的力量。

在母親的家庭，意外知道理舅（楊理）的日記（1965-1967），這份遺物一直放在外婆的身邊。五十年的時間流走了，現下她已不記得丈夫和五個孩子，每天在重複的動作中度過日子，然而她再也講不出“故事”，也遺忘了那些一直保存在身邊的物件。這部分我會從外婆後半生居住的教師職工房，整理他們的手稿·信件和其他資料，以此為起點行走外公和理舅流轉的地點：勞改、公社、死亡、埋葬、逃跑線路和地方武鬥發生的場所。楊理在日記最後寫下了一個地址：江似海，北京市中山路9657號門牌”。奇怪的是“江似海”也不像真實名字，而稱為“中山路”只存在於民國時期——天安門的正中路段，地址指向了政治運動的中心……

在父親的家庭，爺爺的信息很少，家庭成員裡沒有人能完全說清楚他作為軍醫跟隨國民黨南下粵西，為什麼最後沒有選擇去台灣或是返回家鄉河南。父親的兄弟們存下了爺爺祖屋的地址，他們都未曾去看過，僅有一位當地聯繫的親人（爺爺的侄子）在前些年也走了。爺爺在50年代進入鹽場醫院工作，成長于鹽場的父親也不止一次提及製鹽艱辛的勞作，是他一輩子最難忘記的經歷。當我與父親重返鹽場大院時，場景早已發生變化，但他仍能指認出早已拆除第二層的哨崗，並說那個地方就是用來監視他們工作。

任何記錄爺爺過去的手稿或信件不知是否還有留存，親人因為害怕遭到牽連，將埋在土中的物件挖出燒掉。父親是最小的孩子，他曾說爺爺衣不蔽體的關在某處（他曾說是牛棚），並且偷偷地從洞口投放食物。當重返現場，我的父親指著已是空蕩蕩的水泥地，確認連著圍牆這個地方是第三個哨崗，哨崗的第一層關押著爺爺，而在圍牆外就是他被處決的荒地。

當我發問要面對什麼樣的歷史才是屬於這個家庭，然而空白、錯漏、遺失完全佔據其中，家庭記憶在大歷史的書寫下也極易流失。當歷史準確地填补“一個足够好的故事”，那麼普通家庭、普通生命在流動中消失了什麼，造成我們現下的不願透露真相的檔案，這也是“無名者的家庭史”面向的問题。經歷者缺失的語言，落在每一個人身上，可能都會出現對過去表述不清，或是落入怨恨的表態,又或是小心翼翼地回答歷史遺留的問题，即使能判斷過去的傷痛為何發生但身體行為上仍留存的時代烙印。在項目行動中借助回憶梳理歷史，同時也是反思“遺忘”的工作——“我”在哪里？為了那些隐蔽在背後的傷痛和失語，人以及人，我們需要奪回應得的、本能的理解和無畏。

 

Regarding the “Family History of the Unknown” project, I am not writing a “family history”, rather, it focuses on the narrative of the great history, which leads to the blank, loss and error memories, and what traces of the power behind these memories leave behind, which can be analyzed and presented structurally with the void of the current history. Perhaps the first part of the work can only be carried out through walking, writing, video, and oral recordings at the beginning, but not immediately through visualization. What I hope to do is to use my own physical approach to understand and respond to the issues that are being suppressed nowadays.

In parents’ families, there are relatives who died in the 1960s movement, whose descriptions by family members have now become blurred, and there are many clues that can be traced, which by my generation were already in the throes of being obscured. But what I still want to ask is not a definite result, but why the reality exists in this way, the small clues will guide which direction to look, what process will happen, how many doubts and answers will there be I always believe in the power of the “unknown”.

In my mother’s family, I accidentally found out about the diary (1965-1967) of my Uncle Li (Yang Li), a relic that had been kept at my grandmother’s side. Fifty years have passed, and now she no longer remembers her husband or her five children, and spends her days in repetitive actions, but she can no longer tell the “stories” and has forgotten the objects she keeps with her. In this section I will compile manuscripts, letters and other material from the teachers’ staff room where my grandmother lived for the rest of her life, and use this as a starting point to walk through the places where my grandfather and uncle moved: reform through labor, people’s communes, deaths, burials, escape routes and the Local Violent Struggles took place. At the end of his diary, Yang Li wrote down an address: ‘Jiang Sihai, Gate No. 9657, Zhongshan Road, Beijing’. Curiously, “Jiang Sihai” does not look like a real name either, and the name “Zhongshan Road” only existed in the Republic of China – the central section of Tian’anmen Square – and the address points to the center of the political movement……

In my father’s family, there is very little information about my grandfather, and no one in the family can fully explain why he, as a military doctor, followed the Kuomintang south to western Guangdong and did not eventually choose to go to Taiwan or return to his hometown in Henan. My father’s brothers had saved the address of my grandfather’s ancestral home, which none of them had ever visited, and only one local contact (my grandfather’s nephew) had left some years before. My grandfather joined the saltern hospital in the 1950s, and my father, who grew up on the saltern, has spoken more than once about the hard work of making salt, an experience he will never forget. When I returned to the Saltern compound with my father, the scene had changed, but he could still point out that the second level of the sentry post had been removed, saying that it was used to keep an eye on their work. No manuscripts or letters have been found about the grandfather’s past, and his relatives dug up the objects buried in the soil and burnt them all for fear of being implicated. My father, the youngest child, used to say that my grandfather was locked up somewhere in ragged clothes (he used to say it was a cowshed) and that food had been secretly dropped through the hole. When he returned to the scene, my father pointed to the empty concrete floor and confirmed that the area attached to the fence was the third post. The first level of the post held my grandfather, and beyond the fence was the wasteland where he had been executed. When he returned to the scene, my father pointed to the empty concrete floor and confirmed that the area attached to the fence was the third post, the first level of which held my grandfather, and beyond the fence was the barren land where he had been executed.

When I ask what kind of history I have to face to belong to this family, the conflicts, blanks, and errors completely dominate it, and family memories are so easily lost in the writings of the Big History. When history fills in “a good enough story” accurately, then what is lost in the flow of ordinary families, ordinary lives, creates the archive of our present reluctance to reveal the truth, and this is the question to which “Family History of the Unknown” is oriented. The missing language of those who have lived through, in each of us, may appear to be unclear expressions of the past, or falling into resentment, or a careful answer to the problem of history, even if one can judge why the wounds of the past occurred but the imprint of the times still remains in one’s physical behaviour. To sort out history with the help of memories in project actions, but also a reflection on ‘forgetting’ – where is ‘I’? I am not here to record them, but I am in the same stream of time as they are. For the sake of the hidden wounds and lost words, people and people, we need to respond the instinctive understanding and fearlessness.