如此，我们将毫无阻碍地穿越他们的群山 And We Will Go Through Their Hills Without Much Delay (2025), Single-Channel Video (color, sound), 17'17"
在本作中，红外摄影机意外记录下了一位形如十九世纪探险者的人物。他沿着曾经最重要的古道，穿越中缅边境附近的山野，在荒弃的关城废墟寻找残砖，并携带这些残砖跋涉，最终将之抛掷于大盈江中。当作者在稍下游处重新寻得这些砖块时，它们已因江流冲刷成为卵石。
在不同的年代，流动性与对流动性的阻碍纠缠而一，以一种辩证的形式铭刻在土地上。本作援引了其中两个重要的历史瞬间。
标题“如此，我们将毫无阻碍地穿越他们的群山”来自马嘉理(Augustus R. Margary)日记的最后一页，写于1874年2月15日。在写下这些文字后不久，他就殒命于录像中的砖块抛掷处附近。彼时，他作为英国翻译，被从中国派往缅甸，协助一队探路的殖民者进入云南，以开辟连接缅甸殖民地和云南之间的商道，并进一步控制云南。在万里迢迢从上海出发，穿越云南抵达缅甸，然后折返重新进入云南后，马嘉理遭遇当地景颇人阻拦，在冲突中被杀死，以并不光彩的姿态留在了这片土地上。而历史的吊诡之处在于，他的殒命与失败的远征，却促成了清英之间在第二年签订了不平等条约《烟台条约》，为英国势力染指西南中国打开了大门。
实际上，马嘉理心心念念要开辟的商路，已经连接了云南和缅甸数千年。在不同的年代和语境下，它被叫做博南道、永昌道或蜀—身毒道。在滇越铁路建成前，这是连通滇西和海洋的最主要路径之一：从此沿平行于大盈江的道路出境八莫，便能登舟沿伊洛瓦底江直抵印度洋。在十六世纪末的明缅冲突中，云南巡抚陈用宾在道路必经的险要处，构建了包括铜壁关在内的“腾越八关”防御体系，试图以最少的驻军阻止缅甸内侵。然而，这一并不算成功的防御工事却在实质上让关外的土司摇摆离心，并最终外附缅甸，形成了现代中缅边界的雏形。
In this film, infrared cameras accidentally recorded a character shaped like a nineteenth-century explorer. He travelled along what was once the most important caravan road through the mountains near the China-Burma border, searching for bricks in the abandoned ruins of an ancient pass and carrying them on his trek, and ultimately threw them into the Daying River. When the author re-found the bricks downstream, they had already been turned into pebbles by the river.
In different eras, mobility and impediments to mobility have become entangled, inscribed on the land in a dialectical form. This work invokes two of these important historical moments.
The title, ‘And we will go through their hills without much delay’, is taken from the last page of Augustus R. Margary's diary, written on 15 February 1874. Shortly after writing these words, he was killed in the vicinity of the brick-throwing spot shown in the video. At that time, he was sent from China to Burma as a British interpreter to assist a group of exploratory colonists into Yunnan, aiming to open up trade routes linking the Burmese colony to Yunnan and to further control this region. After travelling all the way from Shanghai through Yunnan to reach Burma, and then turning back to re-enter Yunnan, Margary was intercepted by the local Jingpo people and killed in the clash. He ended in this land with no glory. In a paradoxical twist of history, his death and the failed expedition led to the signing of the unequal Treaty of Yantai the following year, which opened the door to British influence in south-west China.
In fact, the trade routes that Margary had in his heart had lain between Yunnan and Burma for thousands of years. In different eras and contexts, it was called the Bonan Road, the Yongchang Road, or the Shu-Hindu Road. Before the construction of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, it was one of the most important routes linking western Yunnan with the sea: from there, along a road that ran parallel to the Daying River, crossing the border to Bhamo and boarding a boat that would take you down the Irrawaddy River to the Indian Ocean. During the conflict between the Ming and Burma at the end of the 16th century, the governor of Yunnan, Chen Yongbin, constructed a defence system including the Tongbi Pass at the perilous sections of the road that must be passed through, in an attempt to stop the Burmese invasion with a minimum of troops. However, this not-so-successful fortification in fact swayed the chieftains outside the passes and finally led to their submission to the Burmese, forming the beginnings of the modern border between China and Burma.