Artist Book Project:
Walking into a museum/gallery, you see bunch of art work, what are you thinking? Why do some people stare at one painting with their eye wet, other’s just walk by, never seeing it again? What are those artist thinking when they making such art work? Why some artist spent ten years (or more) finishing one piece of art, some other artist can feed one gallery to the full within one month?
I’m making an artist book to answer these question:
What are artist thinking when they make art, what are audience thinking when they see the art. What’s the relationship between them.
I invited six photographers to shoot some photos for me. Ten photos each, telling a story of their own. I gave No limitation to the photographers. They can use any type of camera they want, color or B&W, concert or abstract, arty or journalistic. But the photos should be telling a whole story.
Then I’ll tell my story according to the photos the photographer send to me, put it in front of the photos. Then interview them asking, what’s the story of them behind those photos, put the Q&A piece behind the photos.
I will post my own stories here. This is my first one, according to the pictures taken by Wenjie Dong.
Enjoy!
A Slight of Pinky Light
Written by Nan Zhong
Photoed by Wenjie Dong
The First time I met C was in the high school.
Because of the pine trees was full of campus, the school was green, no matter what season it was, always green. The pine tree’s shadow slipped into the classroom through the window. C sat by it, I sat behind of her.
C was pink, pink backpack, pink pencil case, and she felt like pink. Each time I woke up from the dream which the teacher gave me, I saw the black pine tree’s shadow on C’s white uniform. I felt sad, and waited her turns back. And she always did. When she turn back, my world lighted up by a slight of pink light. The pinky blush on her face, the light pink lip stick, and the pinky smile. Then she rolled her eyes pointing to the teacher, said gently:
“I know she’s singing the lullaby, right?”
With her pinky voice.
I always picked the lunch for C. Then eat lunch with her on my desk. Sometimes, other friends would join us. But I always thought C and I have the tacit understanding to each other, no matter how many people joined our lunch party, we usually can keep our own conversation by ignoring other people.
Not only I picked lunch for her, basically I was willing to do anything for her, if she asked me with that pinky voice.
Once, I picked lunch for her as usual. In the stair well, L, another girl in my class stopped me.
“Everyone are talking about you got a crush on C!”
“No! I’m not! I’m just being nice, I’m nice to everyone.”
“Whatever I don’t care. But she’s a bitch, you deserve to know, you are a good guy.”
Then L told me how C bragged about she can just manipulate me easily in front of the girls. And how she manipulate guys like me before I got into that class. And she threw a party invited almost anyone else in the class, without inviting me. When other people asking why I’m not there, she just answered:
“Why should I invite a servant to my party?”
I hold the lunch boxes up to the classroom, put C’s lunch box in front of her, sitting down eating my lunch with her, chatting as usual. The only difference is I cannot see the pinky light from C anymore.
But I don’t feel bad either. I just realized, or remembered, I didn’t like pink at all, all the time.
