4k synchronous dual-channel video, color & stereo channel, 13’47’’, 2023

 

In this synchronous dual-channel video, one of the screens features a scene of  WISCO gradually receding as the ferry departs. The silent narration (subtitles) follows the diary of a young woman spanning three years as a narrative thread. From her private perspective as a first-generation Wuhan Iron and Steel employee, she recounts her journey from technical school to a mining site in Hubei, and then to working at WISCO in Wuhan. Also included are her personal emotional memories over three years of how she met a man, got to know him, and became a partner three years later.The corresponding second screen is composed of historical images from the construction period of WISCO in 1958, capturing the process from site selection to factory establishment, and the formation of the community and collective public spaces surrounding the factory.

 

One represents personal identity and private emotions, while the other embodies material and grand narrative. The juxtaposition of the two images reconstructs reality and memory that perhaps existed but was never spoken of. Between the sound of the trumpet about to set sail, and the anticipation of the journey of an imminent arrival; people yet to return, the developing steel plant, and the river that seems to have never changed, the slowly drifting sandbar, is echoing each other, waiting for an encounter.