致海洋 To the Ocean (2019), Single-Channel Video (color, sound), 49'56"

 

2019年12月1日，我从昆明开始，沿着1910年法国人修建的滇越铁路走向中越边界。这条铁路是云南省最早的现代道路，它连接了云南腹地的省城昆明和越南的港口城市海防。因为这条铁路的修建，曾经云南和外界之间旷日持久危机重重的马帮旅行，突然变成了在车厢之内的、三日能够抵达终点的铁道之旅。而我在彼时开始的则几乎是一场逆向的行程：重新走回铁道上，按照铁路尚未存在时的方式，徒步行走穿过云南的山、坝子和河谷，在云南的旱季中从清冷的高原走向南方暑热。途中，每隔一公里，我会捡拾一块砟石放进背囊，并相应地拍摄一段视频。就这样，449公里的路程最终转化为449块石头的重量。它们使得由铁路时代开始的那些抽象的度量和计数——那些公里、海拔、温度——重新变为身体的感受，并使得后者被不断推向极限，使得漫长的旅程变得更加漫长。就这样，前铁路时代的云南行旅感知被重新折叠回这条已经深入大地的铁路之上，让彼此的尺度、重量和时空重新显明。

On 1 December 2019, I started in Kunming and walked along the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, built by French colonists in 1910, toward the Chinese-Vietnamese border. This railway was the earliest modern road in Yunnan province, linking the provincial capital of Kunming in the Mountainous hinterland with the Vietnamese port city of Haiphong. With the construction of this railway, what was once a remote and dangerous journey by caravans suddenly became a three-day railway journey in a carriage. I started at that time almost a reverse journey: back on the railway, walking through the mountains, plains and valleys of Yunnan in the same way as before the railway existed, from the cool winds in the plateau to the heat of the southern border. On the way, every kilometre, I would pick up a piece of ballast, put it in my bag, and take a video accordingly. In this way, the 449 kilometres of journey eventually translated into 449 stones weighing over 20 kilograms. They make the abstract measures and counts brought by the railway - those kilometres, altitude, temperature - become physical sensations again, and push my body to its limits, making the long journey even longer. In this way, the pre-railway perceptions of travel in Yunnan are folded back into the railway that is already linked to the earth, making each other's scale, weight and time and space visible again.