Dinu Li writes-
Before immigrating to England in 1973, my mother decided to take me, my brothers and sister to meet my uncle in mainland China. For all we knew, it may have been the 1st and the last time that we would meet him and his family. Before setting off on our journey to our motherland, I distinctly remember my mother dressing us with layers and layers of clothing. Each of us must have worn about 5 layers of everything. We were all baffled because it was a warm day, but she did not tell us why and we just thought it was funny how round we looked. As soon as we got to our uncle's house, this mystery was resolved as our extra layers of clothing were distributed amongst our many cousins. For this commission, I was interested to find out what illegal Chinese immigrants bring with them when they leave their motherland. To my surprise, I found out that some of them had collected soil from outside their front doors and carried it with them to England in their trouser pockets. By living a transitory existence, it is clear that illegal immigrants never carry too much with them. What are the most crucial items that they decide to bring? In this project, I wanted to explore the cultural interaction that takes place when materials are moved from one place to another.
Questions:
- How would you compare this work to the work of Nigel Sharfran, from Ch. 4? How is it similar? How is it different?
- How does Dinu's work relate the sense of how these immigrants have brought only a few items from their home country, and how important those items may be?
- How do you think the experience of viewing this work is different, having the explaniation of it's idea, than it would be without the explanation?
5 comments:
Immigrants, legal or illegal cannot brings their home or their whole life with them, so of course they will probably choose a few objects and things that are definitly important to them. Sometimes those objects are so simple and uniportant to the eyes of other individual but for them it can be the most delicate and gracious thing. Those objects usually carries lots of memories, history, love, and maybe other things which make them feel comfort and kind of closer to their home and love ones who they left to immigrant to another place maybe for a better life or other reasons. The little things that immigrants carry with them from their motherland are really important.
I think if you didn't know the background information these pictures would come off as "slice of life" photos that had very little emotional ties and were subsequently kind of boring. Knowing the background of what I was looking at allowed me to imagine what it must be like to live in a transient way.
The items say alot about the human condition and it's attachment to things. What do you bring, sentimental or survival? The small things they did bring say alot about the transient way they live a in a strange land. Without the explanation I would not have thought that far into these photos.
Agree with Katie, the photos are very boring without understanding the background behind them. After understanding the background, the items take on more meaning. The minimal items in the photo give you a feeling of loss, because of what they posibly had to give up. Then you realize the items they did chose to bring, have significant meaning for them, and it makes the photos more intersting.
I also agree that without the background information on these photos that they are a tad bit bland. I do however like the natural lighting used the photographs and the color of the walls.
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