On the Ride: Backseat, Window and Aisle, and so on
Acrylic on Canvas, Wood, Board
iPad Drawing
2016- present
The series tend to discuss about the passiveness while giving your "full rights" to the operator of the vehicles over the ride.
"You are paying, you are under the surveillance, you obey the rules, you have been taken. " Such sentences repeat over my head- it made me reconsider the consequence from all aspects originated from a single vehicle regardless my role within this ride.
This series started accidentally after the first several work I have made starting from Fall 2016.
September 2016, I moved to London and started the graduate school. I lived about 6 mins walk to the closest bus stop, 8 mins walk to the Southwark tube station. Meantime, I was 10 mins away from the Thames, the Blackfriars Bridge. Living in a city like London brought me so much time riding transportations- it is almost nostalgia for me as someone who grew up in Beijing- after 3 years in suburban Maryland, 4 years in Baltimore city, where riding the public transportation does not mean the same thing in comparison.
At the same time, graduate school means that for the very first time in my life, my professional training involved solely with writing and reading.
I fought hard to keep my sensitivity, my creativity as a visual thinker.
It is one of the only time during the day that I belong to the road, my thought belong to myself.
I started to drive to work consistently from August 2019 with my job at the time.
The ride from where I live to work is about 50 mins- 1 hour long.
It brings me from across Beijing and observing the cityscape from dawn to dusk.
I give ride to friends and colleagues, who I often truly trusted unconditionally to share this rather intimate space with.
I guess it means something.
It is the only sanctuary I could hold on to right now.
In the year of 2022 as I am writing at the moment, the obsession towards transportations and people within these rides remains.
I miss many people I have shared ride with- whether it's family, friend, colleagues or the beautiful stranger who was reading all the way to Barcelona.
I hope you a pleasant journey.
