Wenxin Zhang: FIVE NIGHTS, AQUARIUM

It’s quite a cultural shift to move from China to San Francisco, and such a radical change can bewilder and overwhelm. In her beautiful series Five Nights, Aquarium, Chinese photographer Wenxin Zhang deals with the estrangement that her journeys from her homeland to the USA cause her through a series of deeply personal, suggestive pictures.

China – 

Five Nights, Aquarium is a non-linear narration weaved by photographs and five short written works.

I try to reconstruct my inner journey from trips I’ve made between my home country China and San Francisco during these two years in a truthful way, but the overloaded feelings of estrangement and desolation created by the journey have transformed my memories into illusions of confinement. Due to this confinement, my journey story became a space-time, which resembles an aquarium. In this aquarium, cityscapes are fish tank decorations, people are fish, and writings are tank labels.

6Dummy Page©Wenxin Zhang

I chose five nights in the whole reconstructed journey story, using five semi-fictional short stories as clue, to portray the imaginary aquarium. The stories are cold yet intimate, sensual yet intangible. The narration of journey moves from real to imagined spaces, exploring the boundaries between autobiography and fiction.

 

Written & Photography by –  Wenxin Zhang 

Related Posts

Daisuke Yokata: Site/Cloud

Japan – I see a photo. I took it. Although many decades have not passed since the shoot, I cannot ...

Frederic Lezmi: Taksim Calling

Turkey –  Taksim Calling is an unconventional poster book that contrasts spontaneously taken iPhone pictures of  the Gezi protests by ...

Robert Zhao Renhui: Singapore 1925-2025

Singapore –  The Land Archive chronicles the significant changes in Singapore’s natural and urban landscape that have occurred over a ...

Vitaly Flomenko Riotbooks

Vitaly Fomenko: Revisionist Soviet Rules of the Road

Russia –   “In the Fall of 2014 the world witnessed with confusion, how, headed by the ambitious adventurer Putin, ...

Tommaso Tanini: “H. said he loved us” – An Oppressive Investigation

Italy –  Following three years of travels and investigations in Germany, published by Discipula Editions Photography feature – Tommaso Tanini’s ...

Manik Katyal on Nicolo Degiorgis “Hidden Islam”

Italy – Winner of Author Book Award 2014 at the Rencontres d’Arles, self-published book ‘Hidden Islam’ by Fabrica graduate, Photography feature ...

Thabiso Sekgala : Second Transition

South Africa –  ‘Second Transition’ is the series of images that I’ve photographed in the areas around the mining town ...

Clara Vannucci: Bail Bond – Bondsmen, Defendants and Bounty Hunters

USA –  ‘Bail Bond’ by Italian photographer Clara Vannucci is a visual tale set in contemporary New York. By weaving ...

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber: Nothing To My Name

China –  Music plays an important role in subcultures and protest movements. Music brings people together – both in clubs, ...