作品介绍
「母亲与我」通过五张错位视角的照片展现了我与母亲之间的亲密关系，以及自我与自我的亲密关系。在作品中，我与母亲赤身裸体坦诚相对，身处于白色空间内，试图表现在精神世界中，抛却一切外物，我和母亲在灵魂层面上是平等的。它展现了我的人生破圈哲学——将自己视为拥有独立思想的个体，通过观察、审视、评判与反思，实现经济、精神和情感独立，以获得真正的自由。
这个作品是我在母亲初次来美国旅行期间构思并拍摄的。成年后很少有机会如此长时间和母亲居住在一起，直到我们在美国重聚。那些我心知肚明却若即若离的、在时差与距离的遮掩中若隐若现的问题逐渐显现出来。比如母亲的强大掌控欲与我对”被控制“的应激反应之间的矛盾；比如成年后在“成为自己”与满足母亲的期待之间的极限拉扯；再比如，将上一辈的欲望和价值观从已成型的人格中驱逐的渴望……
角色扮演是我的铠甲，是面对这个复杂的世界时保护自己的机制——与父母形成了特定的相处模式之后，要如何发现自己实际上是在扮演一个角色，而非真实坦然地面对这段关系——那个在父母面前温顺乖巧从不反驳的人，那个用甜言蜜语掩饰实际冷漠无情的人，那个为了获得关注而默默毁掉自己的人，那个为了让对方妥协而以死相逼的人，那个为了让父母冷静下来听自己说话、为了获得更多话语权而如野兽般向对方嘶吼的人......
本应是最爱我们的人，却伤我们至深。要如何抗争才能获得本应得到的爱与尊重？要如何放弃求而不得，才能成长为无所畏惧的人？
长篇大论地讲述原生家庭矛盾并非我的本意，相反，我渴望从中脱离出来，避免谈及具体的人。我希望“母亲”在这个作品的语境中不止代表我的母亲，“我”也不仅指代我自己。“母亲”的角色可以作为千千万万个家庭中上位者的体现，也是在特定时刻对行为产生约束的——人类对自身的认知和认同感，他们的欲望、三观、良知，抑或是不可名状的高等权力的具像化体现。
黑格尔在《精神哲学》中说道：“意识的真理是自我意识，而后者是前者的根据……我知道对象是我的表象，因而我在对象里知道我”。在这个作品中，自我意识是对自我的无限的离开和划分，我以观察自身行为的方式破除”大他者“对自身的影响。拼贴剪辑的创作方式使我对于自己构建的图像和其中的人物关系拥有足够的主导权。我，将“母亲”和“自我”放在自己的对立面，试图从多个角度观看自己以及正在观看自己的自己。通过这种注视，我窥见了那个完整的独立自我，从“大他者”的捆绑中全身而退。
在这个被我创造出来的图像世界中，观察者主体与被观察者客体的身份随时可以互调。母亲、画框外的每位观众，我自己和二重身三重身，都是观看者与被观看者。在最后一张照片中，我们透过画框、穿过镜头，与穿越时空看到此系列作品的观众对视——我在创作时便已经在注视观众，而观众也在注视着创作时的我。而“我”在概念上所隐喻的“小他者”，代表的或许是观众的自我意识，也始终在注视着观众自身。我们都成了被观察的客体。这也是福柯所说的，艺术和知识属于“人”的时代的真正到来。
Statement
“My Mother and I” presented the intimate relationship between my mom and I, and my relationship with myself. I chose to stay naked and honest with my mom in an empty room to show that, excluding all the values that humans put on ourselves, we are no different than the other, and we connect to each other with our souls in the spiritual world. This work presented the philosophy of life: see oneself as independent individuals, and pursue real freedom through observations, judgements and introspections, until achieving financial, mental and emotional independence.
This work was built and documented during my mother’s first trip to America. After becoming an adult, I rarely have chances to live with my mother for a long time. Until we meet each other in America again, the problems that were buried by time difference and distance appeared accordingly. For instance, the conflict between the strong controlling desire of my mother and my stress response to “being controlled”. Or the push-and-pull between “becoming myself” and “satisfying my mother’s expectations” in adulthood. Or the desire of getting rid of my parents’ old-fashioned opinions from my matured personality.
Role playing is my armor, and the protection of myself toward the complicated world. After building up a specific unique relationship with parents, how do we discover that we are actually playing a role, instead of being honest to each other and the relationship between us? The person who never argues back and always being a good kid in front of parents. The person who cloaked his cold-blood nature under sweet words. The person who silently destroys himself to get attention. The person who threatens to kill himself to force compromise. The person who screams at each other like a beast to get his parents to calm down and listen to him in order to get more speech power… People who should love us the most hurt us the most. How should we fight to get the love and respect we deserve? How do we give up the things we couldn’t get, and become fearless and mature?
Writing a huge paragraph about my original family was never my intention. Instead, I want to get myself out of the conversation, avoid talking about specific people. I hope that in this conversation, “Mother” does not only present my mother, and I’m not only myself. The role of the "mother" can be the embodiment of the superior in thousands of families, and it is also the constraint on behavior at a particular moment, the cognition and identity of the "I" myself, my desires, world views, conscience, or the symbolic embodiment of the indescribable higher power.
Hegel wrote in his Philosophy of Mind: "The truth of consciousness is self-consciousness, and the latter is the basis of the former... I know that the object is my appearance, so I know me in the object." In this work, self-awareness is the infinite separation and division of the self, and I break the influence of the "Big Other" on myself by observing my own behavior. Through the creation of collage editing, I have enough control over the images I construct and the relationship between the characters in them. I, placing "mother" and "self" in opposition to myself, try to see myself and am watching myself from multiple perspectives. Through this gaze, I glimpsed the complete, independent self - free from the bondage of the "mother."
In this world that I have created in the pictures, the identities of the observer subject and the observed object can be intermodulation at any time. My mother, every viewer outside the frame and myself are the viewer and the ones being watched. In the last photo, we look through the frame, through the lens, and look at the audience who sees the series through time and space - I am already looking at the audience when I create it, and the audience is looking at me when I create it. The "little other" metaphorized by "I" in concept may represent the audience's self-consciousness, and it is always watching the audience itself. We all become objects of observation. This is also the real arrival of the age when, as Foucault said, art and knowledge belong to "man."