Imposing Passes Stand

Imposing Passes Stand, Distant Roads Extend (2024), Two-Channel Video (color, sound), 14'54"

During the Ming-Burma military conflict in the early seventeenth century, Yunnan governor Chen Yongbin, in order to reduce the number of troops stationed on the border, constructed a defence system centred on the eight passes of Tengyue, and established fortresses to guard the main roads of that region. These passes ultimately formed a psychological barrier between the different regions, an ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ imaginary. In the two synchronised channels, the actor keeps running towards the collapsed border gates in the present, continuously leaving/entering the passes. The continuous running is accompanied by occasional film scenes and soundtracks: these fragments are taken from films about the Yunnan border in the 1950s to early 1960s, especially those scenes of border chases. They are another embodiment of the Yunnan border imagery.

*CIFRA production