Guoxuan 国萱 （2021）
关于外婆的五个曾住地。
献给外婆。
This is a documentary about five past residences of my grandma.
bilibili 链接：https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1tM4y1K7Yd
Through revisiting my grandmother’s former residences, this work is an attempt to trace heridentity and memories before and after she became a wife, a mother, and a grandmother.
This is a two-channel documentary video that documents the current appearance of mygrandma’s five residences from her birth to the present. It is an attempt to explore theidentity and memories of my grandma through revisiting her former residences.Furthermore, this leads to the phenomena about disappearance of female’s self-identity inthe family. Since her name is rarely mentioned in our lives, this work is titled with her name,Guoxuan, to emphasize an independent identity apart from her identity that is framed byfamily. Lastly, this work reveals the contradiction and complexity relationship amongfamilies, that the intimacy relationship is always accompanied by a sense of alienation, andthe younger generation often knows little about the elders’ past.
The traces left by each place of residence carries grandma’s life at different stages. During my research and interview for this project, it is noticeable that nobody knows where my grandma was born in my family except for herself. This refers back to the loss of identity that I mentioned before. The house where she was born has been abandoned, leaving with ruined walls, and the rest are sold or renovated. The traces of repairs are interwoven with the original appearance of the house, which transfers a familiar but alienated feeling.
The footages of houses are mostly presented in the channel on the left, and the photographs of grandma when she was young, and her current images will alternately appear in the channel on the right. I kept some of the background voices in my footages, the content is mostly about grandma randomly chatting with her relatives who are currently living in those houses. It can be interpreted as her communication to the past.
