a tube of blood for home (2021-2022)
senior thesis project by cherlynn zhang
During the pandemic in 2020, when I returned home from the United States to China, I understood that home is an in-between zone that connects the process of returning and leaving.
On the way home, I became a zombie.
Nikos Papastergiadis coined the term "zombification" to characterize a current form of dehumanization of migrants. The zombies (the migrants’ bodies), according to him, are full of “anxiety,” “silence and moral placelessness.” Detached to the inner city, a zombie is an “abstract identity that is stripped of national or ethnic markers and a hijacking of agency by malicious and other-worldly powers.” The original reference of zombification is the experience of “migrants” in a “foreign land.”
Reverse zombification, nonetheless, happens when an exile is returning home. Because the contagious body has the ability to destabilize societal orders, zombies instill fear. The virus is an "invisible and unlocatable" antagonist in the pandemic, with no name or face. People who return from overseas are zombified because they are seen as a possible viral host—a visible and physical subject where fear is embodied. Fear of the virus transform into the fear of humans, and the concept of hospitality and homecoming is questioned. In this critical time, going home is selfish and unethical, as one is putting one’s homeland at risk.
where is home,
when all of your people are afraid of you? how could I ever arrive home,
when everyone is telling me to stay away from it?
The way I moved through borders and experienced time in the centralized quarantine, the way my life at home was entirely dependent on, and dominated by, an omnipresent system called the health code, reminded me of the disorientation, disconnection, and freefalling detachment I experienced in North Korea three years ago. Photographs printed on fabrics reflect the perplexity shared by these two voyages.
These feelings, also seem to be perpetual, that I carry them inside a suitcase wherever I go. I continued to bring them through my gesture of leaving home in June 2021. These feelings, don't seem to have closure even though I am standing on my homeland.
My gesture of leaving home is documented in the second part of this project. After the pandemic, how do we experience borders? This journey began at a border city in northern China called Dandong. The first time I went to Dandong, this city was a place of transition, as I was crossing the border to the other side of the Yalu River. Three years later, when the border was closed, I re-experience Dandong with new gestures: visualizing, smelling, imagining...
Dandong was the beginning point for my border journey. I traveled north along the Yalu River, passing via Yanji, Tumen, Hunchun, and Suifenhe, then east to Manzhouli on the Chinese-Eastern Railway before crossing the desert to Dunhuang. This voyage is then transformed into a rhizomatic video collage that incorporates analog photos, moving pictures, and fragmented writings. This collection contains nine stories. Each story weaves together personal recollections and fiction to create a dreamscape. Hearing voices from fish, frogs, yaks, border dwellers, and travelers, I wish to create a polyvocal imagination around the borders that speaks to the personal, social, and political.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my deepest love to my committee: Jennifer Bajorek and Jean-Marie Casbarian. Words cannot express my appreciation for your genuine advice and care throughout the year. I will not forget this year-long journey that we forged together, thank you for holding my hand and accompanying me while I map out this homescape. I cannot leave Hampshire without giving a big hug to Lorne Falk, a special friend and mentor who brings me into the world of art, spurs my imagination around border culture, and gives me the strength to listen and follow my nomadic voice. I must also thank Keliy-Anderson Staley, Heidi Gilpin, Justin Kimball, Karen Koehler, Adam Levine, Claudio Nolasco, John Slepian, Kane Stewart, Lailye Weidman, and Neil Young, my experiences at Hampshire College would not be unparalleled without your insightful teaching and advice. I am particularly grateful for all of you who sent me the whisperings. This project is impossible without your voices. Thank you for trusting me and being willing to explore this homescape with me. And I sincerely thanks my dearest friends, Harry Wang for providing technical support on sound; Chang Liu for mentoring me on website construction; and Yuanzhe Ouyang for helping with exhibition installation. Finally, I thank my family, especially mom, who heartily collected whisperings of far away home for me, you are the being that warmly embraces and connects me back home despite all the ruptures.