The Holding Zone

The neighborhood I grew up in was situated around the residence of the Wuhan Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China and the People's Liberation Army. It’s an area close to government offices, and the surrounding environment reflects and responds promptly to new policies and measures. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, I finally returned here in 2023 after living in Chicago for four years. Multiple public spaces in my residential district lost their original attributes and functions due to changes in regulations, leading to a semi-abandoned state with prolonged disuse. I aim to showcase the fragile intimacy between the individual and public spaces by capturing myself within the environments I reshape. How are public spaces continuously reshaped by socio-political changes, and how do they infiltrate the personal lives of different classes and groups? I utilize the projector as a tool of visual intrusion, casting transient regulatory signs into abandoned spaces. These signs briefly exist in the form of light within the span of my camera's shutter release, disappearing without a trace as the shutter closes. Past and present momentarily coexist in the space.