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Jia Xiang

This is a fictional photographic series that portrays a collection of memories of my hometown and childhood, constructed through photography and digital technology. The title is written in pinyin, the Romanized writing system of Chinese. Due to the homophonic nature of many Chinese characters, it simultaneously refers to “家乡” (Jiāxiāng, Home) and “假象” (Jiǎxiàng, Illusion). These two seemingly different concepts both point, within my work, to the coexistence of reality and illusion in memory.

 

The inspiration mainly comes from my experiences over the past few years in Germany. Time and distance have created a sense of detachment and ambiguity toward what I call “home,” and raised questions about where home truly lies. Yet, at certain moments, I often find myself recalling my hometown and childhood. Through organizing my personal narratives, I began to reimagine the structure of my daily life — to relive childhood memories, to respond to distant echoes, and to rethink identity and self-perception as someone living away from home.

 

Part of the photographs used in this project come from my family archives, while another part consists of fragmented diary snapshots from the present. The images are processed using digital tools — collage, overlapping, and generative computation — which blur the boundaries between subjects, geographical locations, and time until they become almost unrecognizable. Inspired by the nature of memory and simulation, I reconstruct certain scenes based on similarities found within my personal visual archive. These fragmented and reconstructed images attempt to depict the interplay between the clarity of present life and the damp, hazy texture of past memories, forming a fictional narrative between the real and the imagined.

 

家乡（假象）

这是一部虚构摄影集，描绘了一系列以摄影与数字技术构建的家乡与童年记忆。标题的书写形式取自汉语拼音，因汉字的同音异义，它既指“家乡”（Jiāxiāng，Home），也指“假象”（Jiǎxiàng，Illusion）。这两个看似不同的概念，在我的作品中共同指向记忆的真实与虚幻。

灵感主要来源我过去几年在德国的经历。时间和距离让我对所谓的家乡产生了距离感和模糊感，也对何处为家产生疑问。然而却常常在某个特定的时候对家乡和童年产生回溯。于是通过整理我的生活叙述，重新想象我日常生活的结构，去重温我童年时的记忆以及对遥远互呼唤的回应，对身份认同和自我观念重新思考。

创作的过程的照片的一部分来自我家庭的档案，另一部分来自当下的零碎日记快照。照片的处理是基于数字工具的，拼贴，重叠，智能生成在计算过程的实践中的运用，使原本图像中的主题，地理位置间和时间维度被模糊得几乎无法辨认。受到记忆和模拟本质的启发，基于我的个人视觉档案，我根据内容的相似性，对一些场景进行重新构建，这些被破坏了的照片的表象性质试图重新描绘出个人当下清晰和真实生活和过去潮湿模糊记忆，并进行虚构描述和叙事。

 

/ 2024

Jia Xiang

This is a fictional photographic series that portrays a collection of memories of my hometown and childhood, constructed through photography and digital technology. The title is written in pinyin, the Romanized writing system of Chinese. Due to the homophonic nature of many Chinese characters, it simultaneously refers to “家乡” (Jiāxiāng, Home) and “假象” (Jiǎxiàng, Illusion). These two seemingly different concepts both point, within my work, to the coexistence of reality and illusion in memory.

 

The inspiration mainly comes from my experiences over the past few years in Germany. Time and distance have created a sense of detachment and ambiguity toward what I call “home,” and raised questions about where home truly lies. Yet, at certain moments, I often find myself recalling my hometown and childhood. Through organizing my personal narratives, I began to reimagine the structure of my daily life — to relive childhood memories, to respond to distant echoes, and to rethink identity and self-perception as someone living away from home.

 

Part of the photographs used in this project come from my family archives, while another part consists of fragmented diary snapshots from the present. The images are processed using digital tools — collage, overlapping, and generative computation — which blur the boundaries between subjects, geographical locations, and time until they become almost unrecognizable. Inspired by the nature of memory and simulation, I reconstruct certain scenes based on similarities found within my personal visual archive. These fragmented and reconstructed images attempt to depict the interplay between the clarity of present life and the damp, hazy texture of past memories, forming a fictional narrative between the real and the imagined.

 

家乡（假象）

这是一部虚构摄影集，描绘了一系列以摄影与数字技术构建的家乡与童年记忆。标题的书写形式取自汉语拼音，因汉字的同音异义，它既指“家乡”（Jiāxiāng，Home），也指“假象”（Jiǎxiàng，Illusion）。这两个看似不同的概念，在我的作品中共同指向记忆的真实与虚幻。

灵感主要来源我过去几年在德国的经历。时间和距离让我对所谓的家乡产生了距离感和模糊感，也对何处为家产生疑问。然而却常常在某个特定的时候对家乡和童年产生回溯。于是通过整理我的生活叙述，重新想象我日常生活的结构，去重温我童年时的记忆以及对遥远互呼唤的回应，对身份认同和自我观念重新思考。

创作的过程的照片的一部分来自我家庭的档案，另一部分来自当下的零碎日记快照。照片的处理是基于数字工具的，拼贴，重叠，智能生成在计算过程的实践中的运用，使原本图像中的主题，地理位置间和时间维度被模糊得几乎无法辨认。受到记忆和模拟本质的启发，基于我的个人视觉档案，我根据内容的相似性，对一些场景进行重新构建，这些被破坏了的照片的表象性质试图重新描绘出个人当下清晰和真实生活和过去潮湿模糊记忆，并进行虚构描述和叙事。

 

/ 2024

/ 2023