Along the River

HD video, stereo, color, 2-channel, synchronous loop

When I was one year old, my great-grandmother passed away, and we missed our only chance to meet. Amidst the shifting of identities, the adriftness of the self, and the collapse of meaning, and under the shadow of a lingering depression, I walked back along several rivers to keep that appointment from twenty-odd years ago, to seek out my great-grandmother’s traces.

Along the rivers, I traversed generational trauma and hidden loneliness, crossing paths with encounters across time. Certain moments from the past began to emerge, where a history from before my life met me within it.

A voice told me: ‘Keep going Along the River.’

-
A Film by Kechen Qian

For
Mingyi Pang
Junfang Feng

Thanks to
Yu Chen