Syncopation 错拍
Now / Elsewhere 此时 / 他方
Photography / Installation / Book
2020-2021
Growing up in rural China before migrating to immigrant cities, I became acutely aware of urban exclusivity and alienation. This experience drew me to explore the urban-rural interface of Chengdu—a unique buffer zone where city rationality meets rural wilderness, where rhythms fall out of sync yet create unexpected harmonies.
With a small Sony camera, I adopted a nomadic approach to document these borderlands. Here, traditional communities simultaneously resist and absorb urbanization through civilization's cracks, creating a syncopated rhythm of old and new. My lens captures isolated and mediated landscapes, seeking metaphors in the intersection of countryside, nature, capitalism, and time. Like musical syncopation that disrupts expected beats to create compelling patterns, these spaces generate their own irregular yet vital rhythms.
Each photograph frames a dialogue about mutual absorption between seemingly distinct realms: urban and rural, human and nature. The subjects become metaphors for those living in society's margins, where displacement and adaptation create complex counterpoints. Through photography, I attempt to document these offbeat moments, providing visual shelter for displaced lives caught in development's syncopated advance.
Yet questions persist: What future awaits these syncopated spaces? Will they be assimilated by urban governance, vanish in development's regular march, or transform into choreographed theme parks for city dwellers? These uncertainties reflect broader tensions in China's urbanization, where traditional lifeways negotiate with modernity's relentless tempo.
乡野长大再漂去移民城，让我切肤感到城市是如何推开又疏离。我被吸引去拍成都城乡的界面 -- 那是理性和野性碰撞的缓冲带，节拍崩裂却意外和声。背着小索尼，我游荡式地拍这片边地。在这里，老社群从文明的裂缝里既抗拒又吸收城市化，敲打出新旧错拍的节奏。
我的镜头捕捉孤立又中介的风景，在乡土、自然、资本、时间的交错处找隐喻。像音乐里打乱常规却生出动人规律的切分音，这些空间有着它们自己的乱序却生动的律动。每一帧都框住一场对话，关于城乡、人与自然这些表面对立却互相吸收的领域。镜头里的主体成了活在社会边缘者的隐喻，错位与适应在这里织出复杂的对位。
通过拍摄，我试图记录这些失序的瞬间，给困在发展错拍中的流离者一个视觉避难所。但问题还在：这些错位的空间将去向何方？会被城市管理同化，在发展的齐步中消失，还是变成城里人的主题公园？这些不定性映射出中国城市化更大的张力，传统生活在此与现代性的无情节拍讨价还价。
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