Time of Fantasies: Aniu

I have wanted to write something since I first saw Aniu’s works, but I feel words are not enough to describe them. Most of the art photographers these days tend to have a clear agenda in their mind before they shoot their works, and an expert critic can usually identify the photographer’s intent or influences. Aniu’s works are something else. They seemed to follow a unique visual instinct, editing and extracting the most ordinary scenes into something quite dark and mysterious. The mood is always melancholy, the dodging and burning are prevalent, the colors are often de-saturated, and the meaning seems unfathomable. But together these images speak loudly for themselves.

The following is the small article he wrote to when he published a group of photos in a major Chinese photo magazine. Somehow the poetry of his writing gets lost in my attempt of translating this essay. I hope Aniu, if he ever read this, would forgive me.

I always know, behind the skyscrapers and all these colorful spectrum of people, there hide secrets that can’t be explained – These secrets exit in the alleyway, under a small tree, or behind the flicking expressions of people’s faces. They are also truths. For a long time I searched between the bustling city and the neglected corners, between two kinds of truths.Until one day I came to the beach on east side of this city. Dark clouds had covered the sky and made everything look grey. A tailless fish was washed up to my side by the waves. The body was bloated and had turned white since it had been soaked in the water for a long time. Where did it come from? Why was its tail missing? What ended its life? Was it the hungry sailor or sharp blades of some propeller? Was its misfortune connected to our own life?

Many days later, the fish appeared again in front of me as in the photo I took. The same question came back and it suddenly occurred to me that behind this image there is the river of visual fantasies.

It carries plots and fleeting moments, just as very small wave has buried a surreal past, every glistening ripple reflects the city’s vulgar desires, and every sinking sand can tell a story of sadness.

I slow down my pace, lower down my voices, trying to start a dialogue with them and listening to their sighs and smiles. Now I am standing on the side of the river and looking out. The river is wide with many crisscrossing tributaries. The real and the unreal can not be distinguished. I know that I cannot add anything to that, since “every river will eventually find its own direction”.