Invisible World 看不见的世界
What does it mean to see time, rather than simply witness a moment?
Invisible World unfolds through two intertwined reflections. On the surface, the photographs depict Shenzhen at night, illuminated streets, rising towers, fragments of urban stillness. Yet the images are created using exposures ranging from one tenth of a second to as long as an hour. In this extended duration, light ceases to describe a single instant. It accumulates. It fossilizes.
Human vision captures only fleeting slices of time. Through long exposure, past and present collapse into a single plane. Moving lights dissolve into streaks; architecture becomes both solid and unstable. Time and space blend into flat yet layered images narratives without sequence, where duration is embedded into the surface of the photograph itself.
Beneath this formal experiment lies a deeper social meditation. In contemporary China, rapid urbanization has transformed entire cityscapes within a single generation. Shenzhen, constructed in roughly thirty years, stands as one of the most dramatic examples of this acceleration. In cycles of demolition and reconstruction, buildings vanish as quickly as they rise. With them, collective memory falters.
The photographs suggest that our understanding of the world is only ever partial, a fragile point suspended between what has already disappeared and what has not yet arrived. The visible present is surrounded by invisible past and invisible future.
Born in the 1970s in Anhua, Hunan, the artist is the founder of Little Park Art Space. Working primarily in photography while extending into conceptual art, performance, and painting, his practice consistently interrogates perception, memory, and transformation.
His works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Minsheng Art Museum, Guangdong Museum of Art, Shenzhen Art Museum, Guan Shanyue Art Museum, Museum Folkwang, Brandts Museum of Art and Visual Culture, Solleric Cultural Center, Photo L.A., and Saddleback College.
Awards and recognition include the Hou Dengke Documentary Photography Award (2013), nomination for the “PUNCTUM” Award at the Lianzhou International Photography Festival (2016), the DIPE International Photography Union President Award at the Dali International Photography Exhibition (2017), selection among China’s Top 10 Annual Photography Works (2020), and the Artist of the Year Award at Shenzhen Aohu Art Village (2021).
Invisible World ultimately asks not only how a city changes, but how memory survives acceleration. It invites the viewer to stand still long enough to see time itself accumulating quietly in the dark.
Language: English, Chinese & Japanese
Format: Hardcover | 40 pages
Dimensions: 305 x 305 x 100mm | 415g
Publication Year: 2024
ISBN: 978-4-908851-10-0
Limited Edition of 500
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