Back to the City

Back to the City, set against the dynamic backdrop of Beijing World Park, delves into the realm of global cultural representation. This thematic park showcases iconic landmarks from five continents, allowing visitors to experience a virtual world tour.

Back to the City is a multidisciplinary project exploring the intersections of memory, authenticity, and constructed realities through photography, AI-generated images, family albums, sculpture. The project examines how iconic landmarks and travel photography shape our perceptions of place and history, revealing the complex interplay between personal memory and collective narratives.

The project originated from my photo exploration of Beijing World Park, a theme park featuring miniature replicas of global landmarks. These aging structures, built in the 1990s to simulate international travel for a domestic audience, create a surreal juxtaposition between staged images of global landmarks and the realities of limited mobility.

World Park challenges the authenticity of photography in a physical sense. Moreover, with technological advancements, contemporary artificial intelligence can fabricate lifelike yet entirely synthetic travel images. This not only enables the fabrication of places one has never visited but also the creation of entirely fictional characters who can stand in front of monuments, transcending time and borders.

My fascination with travel photos stems from my experiences traversing internationally amidst the complexities of pandemic and political environments. Engaging in the process of capturing and synthesizing fictional travel photos prompted me to reflect on my family's travel history and compile personal photographs. Viewing images of my father at Times Square in early 2000s; witnessing images of my mother conducting research by the seaside; glimpsing images of my grandparents taking three-year-old me to the temple—these memories, albeit blurry, form an undeniable part of my life. I collected my family travel photos together with some “fiction archives”. The other two family albums feature AI-generated images capturing Chinese tourists in front of the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building from the 1970s to the 2010s. Contemplating their sentiments in less-documented eras raises questions about business trips or immigrant journeys.

The project includes sculptures—towering replicas of the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building adorned with fragile, AI-generated images printed on tracing paper—representing a time-traversing Tower of Babel that connects memory, travel, and imagination.

Back to the City critiques the evolving nature of travel, memory, and representation in a world increasingly mediated by technology.