找妈妈 (2021至今)，当时我在英国读研期间没有回国，该聊天记录呈现了我和母亲相隔八千公里/七个小时，在截然不同的生活轨迹下，却矛盾地约定见面，她要带我去派出所更改我们的户籍所在地，在这段我去找她的旅途中，我看着地图、导航、指示标，不停地在迷路，被各种沿途事物分散注意力，以我们各自的路径（交通工具+步行）为线索，勾连出她的个人经历和中国城市化进程中的集体记忆。
母亲出生于70年代初，她经历了中国高速现代化发展时期， 中国在20世纪50年代至改革开放的户籍制度可以类比为“国内护照制度”，它构建了中国城乡二元对立的概念（延续至今），很多国家都有类似户籍的概念，只不过通常仅被用作于人口统计，而中国在上世纪的户籍政策和食物/教育/医疗/社会福利等公民权益直接挂钩，这使得户口更多意味着身份/社会阶级而非出生地点/定居地点，它限制了人口从农村向城市的流动，为每一个新出生的孩子刻划下肉眼可见的归宿——没有选择的权利。而城乡之间极大的不平等也就产生了中国特色的“农民潮”“城市化”“户口买卖”“盲流”等现象。
在我父母成年并开始寻找工作的年代，限制城乡流动的政策已宽松， 农村有数以千万计的人口涌入城市工作，他们所幸赶上社会浪潮成为了“北漂”一份子，作为外地人在北京工作、 生活。 北京作为首都，对外地人有极高的落户/居住限制。“漂”、“流” 体现了流动的生存状态。我们没有家，我们到处租房，我们生活的地址和户口本上的地址不一致。 户口在他们的观念里是最重要的东西，在北京落户是他们此生的梦想，而作为他们的孩子，很长一段时间我不能理解他们的行为，并且产生了很多矛盾
而我在离开她之后才开始好奇她的故事，那些她从未讲过的话，那些她讲过但被我忽略的话。这段自言自语般虚构的对话是我第一次尝试理解母亲，故土和我们的历史，这是一段持续进行的对话，没头没尾的悖论式的旅程。我的海外学习经历和母亲的北漂经历形成了一种呼应， 在 以全球化为背景的后疫情时代，对于世界的想象渐渐收缩为自己脚下的一方土地，离散和边界感被凸显。卫星定位技术和全球地理测绘构建了我们对于自身位置的认知和想象，以数字网络为基础的远程实时通讯使“连接”有了不同的形态和含义，我试图在finding mom中营造出一种闹鬼的氛围，盘旋不去的幽灵既来自motherland的呼唤，也来自现代媒介造成的“显灵”错觉，心里 - 地理上的无家可归。
我找妈妈的路显得遥遥无期，我们永远也不会见面
Finding Mom (2021 to present), during my postgraduate studies in the UK, I did not return to China. The chat records show that while my mother and I were 8,000 kilometers/seven hours apart, on completely different life paths, we paradoxically on our way to meet each other. She wanted to take me to the police station to change our household registration location. On this journey to find her, I looked at maps, navigation, and signs, constantly getting lost and distracted by various things along the way. Using our respective routes (transportation + walking) as clues, it connects her personal experiences and the collective memory in the process of urbanization in China.
My mother was born in the early 1970s and experienced China's rapid modernization. The household registration system in China from the 1950s to the reform and opening up can be likened to a 'domestic passport system', which constructed the concept of urban-rural dual opposition in China (continuing to this day). Many countries have a similar concept of household registration, but it's usually only used for population statistics. In contrast, China's household registration policy in the last century was directly linked to citizen's rights like food, education, medical care, and social welfare. This made the household registration mean more about identity/social class than just place of birth/settlement. It restricted population movement from rural to urban areas, marking each new-born child with a visible destiny – without the right to choose. The significant inequality between urban and rural areas led to phenomena in China such as the 'rural tide', 'urbanization', 'household registration trade', and 'blind migration'.
When my parents became adults and started looking for jobs, the policies restricting urban-rural movement had relaxed. Tens of millions of people from rural areas flooded into cities to work, and luckily they became part of the 'Beijing Drifters', working and living in Beijing as outsiders.
Beijing, being the capital, has high restrictions on residence/settlement for people from outside. 'Drift' and 'flow' reflect the state of transient existence. We have no home; we rent everywhere we live. Our living address does not match the address on our household registration book.
The household registration was the most important thing in their minds. Settling in Beijing was their lifelong dream, and as their child, for a long time, I could not understand their actions and had many contradictions.
It was only after I left her that I began to be curious about her story, those words she never told, those she did, but I ignored. This self-talking, fictional dialogue is my first attempt to understand my mother, homeland, and our history. It is an ongoing conversation, a journey with no beginning and no end, full of paradoxes. My overseas study experience and my mother's 'Beijing Drifter' experience form a kind of echo. In the post-pandemic globalization context, uncertainty and dispersion are highlighted. Satellite positioning technology and global geographic mapping construct our cognition and imagination of our position. Remote real-time communication based on digital networks gives 'connection' different forms and meanings. I try to create a haunted atmosphere in 'finding mom', with lingering ghosts originating from the call of the motherland and the illusion of 'apparition' caused by modern media, a psychological - geographical homelessness.
My journey to find my mom seems to have no end in sight, and we will never meet
母亲出生于70年代初，她经历了中国高速现代化发展时期， 中国在20世纪50年代至改革开放的户籍制度可以类比为“国内护照制度”，它构建了中国城乡二元对立的概念（延续至今），很多国家都有类似户籍的概念，只不过通常仅被用作于人口统计，而中国在上世纪的户籍政策和食物/教育/医疗/社会福利等公民权益直接挂钩，这使得户口更多意味着身份/社会阶级而非出生地点/定居地点，它限制了人口从农村向城市的流动，为每一个新出生的孩子刻划下肉眼可见的归宿——没有选择的权利。而城乡之间极大的不平等也就产生了中国特色的“农民潮”“城市化”“户口买卖”“盲流”等现象。
在我父母成年并开始寻找工作的年代，限制城乡流动的政策已宽松， 农村有数以千万计的人口涌入城市工作，他们所幸赶上社会浪潮成为了“北漂”一份子，作为外地人在北京工作、 生活。 北京作为首都，对外地人有极高的落户/居住限制。“漂”、“流” 体现了流动的生存状态。我们没有家，我们到处租房，我们生活的地址和户口本上的地址不一致。 户口在他们的观念里是最重要的东西，在北京落户是他们此生的梦想，而作为他们的孩子，很长一段时间我不能理解他们的行为，并且产生了很多矛盾
而我在离开她之后才开始好奇她的故事，那些她从未讲过的话，那些她讲过但被我忽略的话。这段自言自语般虚构的对话是我第一次尝试理解母亲，故土和我们的历史，这是一段持续进行的对话，没头没尾的悖论式的旅程。我的海外学习经历和母亲的北漂经历形成了一种呼应， 在 以全球化为背景的后疫情时代，对于世界的想象渐渐收缩为自己脚下的一方土地，离散和边界感被凸显。卫星定位技术和全球地理测绘构建了我们对于自身位置的认知和想象，以数字网络为基础的远程实时通讯使“连接”有了不同的形态和含义，我试图在finding mom中营造出一种闹鬼的氛围，盘旋不去的幽灵既来自motherland的呼唤，也来自现代媒介造成的“显灵”错觉，心里 - 地理上的无家可归。
我找妈妈的路显得遥遥无期，我们永远也不会见面
Finding Mom (2021 to present), during my postgraduate studies in the UK, I did not return to China. The chat records show that while my mother and I were 8,000 kilometers/seven hours apart, on completely different life paths, we paradoxically on our way to meet each other. She wanted to take me to the police station to change our household registration location. On this journey to find her, I looked at maps, navigation, and signs, constantly getting lost and distracted by various things along the way. Using our respective routes (transportation + walking) as clues, it connects her personal experiences and the collective memory in the process of urbanization in China.
My mother was born in the early 1970s and experienced China's rapid modernization. The household registration system in China from the 1950s to the reform and opening up can be likened to a 'domestic passport system', which constructed the concept of urban-rural dual opposition in China (continuing to this day). Many countries have a similar concept of household registration, but it's usually only used for population statistics. In contrast, China's household registration policy in the last century was directly linked to citizen's rights like food, education, medical care, and social welfare. This made the household registration mean more about identity/social class than just place of birth/settlement. It restricted population movement from rural to urban areas, marking each new-born child with a visible destiny – without the right to choose. The significant inequality between urban and rural areas led to phenomena in China such as the 'rural tide', 'urbanization', 'household registration trade', and 'blind migration'.
When my parents became adults and started looking for jobs, the policies restricting urban-rural movement had relaxed. Tens of millions of people from rural areas flooded into cities to work, and luckily they became part of the 'Beijing Drifters', working and living in Beijing as outsiders.
Beijing, being the capital, has high restrictions on residence/settlement for people from outside. 'Drift' and 'flow' reflect the state of transient existence. We have no home; we rent everywhere we live. Our living address does not match the address on our household registration book.
The household registration was the most important thing in their minds. Settling in Beijing was their lifelong dream, and as their child, for a long time, I could not understand their actions and had many contradictions.
It was only after I left her that I began to be curious about her story, those words she never told, those she did, but I ignored. This self-talking, fictional dialogue is my first attempt to understand my mother, homeland, and our history. It is an ongoing conversation, a journey with no beginning and no end, full of paradoxes. My overseas study experience and my mother's 'Beijing Drifter' experience form a kind of echo. In the post-pandemic globalization context, uncertainty and dispersion are highlighted. Satellite positioning technology and global geographic mapping construct our cognition and imagination of our position. Remote real-time communication based on digital networks gives 'connection' different forms and meanings. I try to create a haunted atmosphere in 'finding mom', with lingering ghosts originating from the call of the motherland and the illusion of 'apparition' caused by modern media, a psychological - geographical homelessness.
My journey to find my mom seems to have no end in sight, and we will never meet