Li Xin

‘Waves pass, fish swim and our trace is gone’ (2022)

Contemporary Art Practice - MA

School of Art

xinli2021@163.com

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Ephemeral

Project description

Artist Xin Li's single channel, 16-minute documentary film with sound and subtitles, ‘Waves pass, fish swim and our trace is gone’ (2022) despite its poetic title, sets out to explores the complex and paradoxical aspects of a Chinese citizen living and working in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Xin Li’s short film, documents the life of Mr Liu yang and his family, who left China in 2007 to come Scotland to live and work. The families’ experience of setting up a business selling fish wholesale in Edinburgh, having their two children born and educated in Edinburgh and their separation from family and friends in China are representative of the experiences of many Chinese immigrants in Britain. Xin Li’s film offers a sensitive portrait of the family through the combination of interviews, investigative research into the history of Chinese immigrants in Britain and poignant footage of family gatherings (with family members in China appearing online).

Two and half minutes trailer.

In the process of creating the work, Xin Li was able to take on different cultural roles, by inserting herself in the socio/cultural situation the family find themselves. She also adopts methodologies from cultural geography that scrutinise the mobility of people and their reception through the eyes of an outsider.

Video screenshot

Awards

Nominated for An International Conference on Videographic Criticism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst | Sept. 2022

The divisions between Chinese and British cultures also create inevitable problems for his family. The relationship to ‘back home’ in China, makes it difficult for them to maintain close relationships with their family in their hometown in China, as they can only see their relatives via social media. The children of the first-generation immigrants like Liu yang also struggle to accept their parents’ descriptions of their hometown and of China, as they’ve never lived there for any sustained period of time. Consequently, their knowledge of China is second-hand and comes as much from British media’s portrayal of culture stereotypes.