The South Is Infinite Yet Finite

When principles are framed and generalized as knowledge, how do we view everything when the unknown remains infinite?

Named after a line from Huishi’s The Ten Paradoxes, an excerpt from the chapter The World in Zhuangzi.

In this body of work, I construct moments that slightly deviate from reality—blurred scales, unnatural light, materials and spaces that feel both true and false, a sense of weightlessness. They resemble the hazy return of memory when I wake in the middle of the night. The images flow and spread, growing in resonance with one another. Their meanings shift depending on what stands beside them. I gather fragments and slowly assemble a world that exists within my mind.

From museums and libraries to laboratories, I observe ordered collections, illuminated vitrines, archived fragments, and the people who inhabit these systems—scientists, researchers, technicians. After speaking with them, I photograph subtle, in-between moments. I study the histories and present conditions of these institutions, and, through new understanding, I return to look and photograph again. At the same time, the endless process of research continually reminds me that we can never know everything.

I often think of my work as the fore-edge of a book—you see its thickness first, an entry point. My work records the path I travel; it is not a replication of reality but a supplement to it. It will never be complete.

Where might these photographs take you?