Liwen Wu
被锁在人间
HOME
+1 734 548 0501
wuliwen122@gmail.com
CV
© Liwen Wu 吴丽雯
被锁在人间
+1 734 548 0501
wuliwen122@gmail.com
CV
© Liwen Wu 吴丽雯
Kitsch Tapestry: Nostalgia and Novelty in Post-Colonial Chinese Culture
Author: Liwen Wu
Instructors: Jose Sanchez, Ishan Pal Singh
Tools: Blender, Rhino, Unity, C#, Premiere Pro, After Effects
The once-colonized China has been experiencing a phase of abandonment and denial of its own culture and history, falling into a vicious cycle—drifting away from its traditional culture, viewing itself and its culture from an external perspective, longing for a return to a lost harmony, yet forced to continue living in a world where the return is impossible (Chow, 2014).
The confrontation between the dominant Western culture and local culture in the post-colonial era places China in a competitive and perpetually conflicting ontology where pure cultural practices are impossible due to habitual interference from the more dominant side’s disruptions (Chow, 2014).
For China, this ontological manifestation specifically means: It is always in a passive state——On one hand, it is pushed to engage in modernization and Westernization. On the other hand, the local culture becomes a form of symbolic nostalgia and misplaced imitation without an internal drive due to the cultural confusion caused by external invasion.
This story described such a passive state, characterized by confusion and a lack of internal harmony, and at the same time being overwhelmingly propelled forward by the rapid development of the times. It does not try to find a solution nor to tell a specific story, but to express a feeling, an emotion. It begins from a microscopic perspective, weaving together a series of scenes through memories, dreams, and reality, using a very simple plot, expressing an observation of the eternal conflict and a desire for internal harmony. It tries to comtemplates what changed and what remains, to rediscover our own cultural subjectivity. This is a story about loss and rebuilding, confusion and new hope.
Reference:
Chow, R. (2014). Not like a native speaker: On languaging as a postcolonial experience. Columbia University Press.
Some of the model assets come from Sketchfab users