The South Is Infinite Yet Finite

Named after a line from Hui Shi’s “Ten Paradoxes” in the “Zhuangzi” – a foundational text of Chinese philosophy and Taoism – this body of work constructs moments that subtly deviate from reality: blurred scales, unnatural light, materials and spaces that feel both true and false, a sense of weightlessness. They resemble the hazy return of memory when I wake in the middle of the night. The images flow and spread, growing in resonance with one another. Their meanings shift depending on what stands beside them. I gather fragments and slowly assemble a world that exists within my mind.

From museums and libraries to laboratories, I observe ordered collections, illuminated vitrines, archived fragments, and the people who inhabit these systems as scientists, researchers, technicians. After speaking with them, I photograph subtle, in-between moments. I study the histories and present conditions of these institutions, and, through new understanding, I return to look and photograph again. At the same time, the endless process of research continually reminds me that we can never know everything.

I think of my work as the fore-edge of a book: an invitation into its hidden depth. This is not a replication of reality, but a supplement to it. It remains deliberately, perpetually incomplete while it asks: where might these photographs take you?

Zhu Gaocanyue is part of »Guest Room: Shana Lopes & Aspen Mays«