Pisces

The work revolves around a story from the artist’s family connected to the Chinese nuclear test base in Lop Nur, Northwest China, as well as urban legends and mysterious disappearances historically associated with the site. The film combines on-location footage of the Yardang landforms with 3D digital simulation rendering. As the long take slowly advances, fragments of the narrative are gradually unveiled: because the nuclear test zone was long devoid of human traces, numerous urban legends about the area circulated in the last century—tales such as the Double Fish Jade Pendant and the Mirror People. Meanwhile, the nursery rhyme “Malan Blossom Twenty-One” runs throughout the work. Every Chinese child of the post-80s generation hummed this tune while playing Chinese jump rope, yet hidden within the rhyme are secrets tied to China’s nuclear testing program. Perhaps secrets are always transmitted through the forms of pulp literature and children’s songs…