By Shuwei Liu

“Blue is darkness made visible” - Derek Jarman

Visible Darkness is the second part of my Blue trilogy. When I discovered four moon-like crescents at the base of my corneas, I thought I was going to lose sight. The anxiety reminded me of Derek Jarman. Blue was the only thing he could see before he went blind.

An imaginary world full of uncertainties was being built, and at the same time I was hiding in deep shadows, disconnected, and isolated from the world.

Later on, when I was finishing the project, I realised that chasing the colour blue turned out to be adjusting the distance between myself and the world, and by doing so, I returned to the world in a way.

At the time, I read Giorgio Agamben explaining the reason for the darkness in our time, and he found a way to deal with it. “To perceive, in the darkness of the present, this light that strives to reach us but can not; the past touched by this shadow acquired the ability to respond to the darkness of the now.”