Fang Nan

At the beginning of last summer, I lost a huge part of my feelings and emotion to the medicines of a psychological illness, thus, I had to change the way I consider my work, because it is the most ridiculous thing for a person who makes art to feel numb and have no feeling for their work whatsoever. So, I tried to study the place I now lived, hoping to find a new way to see things and maybe get some answers and comfort, and also think about how we stay here in a strange but familiar city.

I used words as the main part of the work, and the picture in the work, named After Two Years, seems to be a small chip to witness and record my experience. The picture here was made up of 20 pictures for four seasons of the last two years in London, and they were the views outside of my window, so this is the London in my mind.

In the past two years, during the lowest period of my illness (which makes me have even more complicated emotions concerning the place I lived), I have to say, I hated London, because I had to stay here in this strange city through all the pain by myself. I had to stay in my room alone to get over the deepest darkness. But I also have to say, I love London, because I was reborn again and again here, I’ve never thought about how I could get over it. I believe that there were at least 100 times during such a psychological illness when people would want to kill themselves, but really many of them survive such thoughts.

So every time, when I wake up from the deepest darkness, I would stand beside the window of my room, and the vibrant scenery outside reminded me I was reborn again.

Because of my personal experience, I gained a deeper understanding of the changes of emotion for people who live in a strange city. However, I didn't want to talk too much about me, I just wanted to use my personal experience to be a beginning and a basis of the work I made, in order to tell a story which belongs to every one.

In the end, just like the words I wrote in my work, we will realise that, after feeling lost, confused and sad, we can accept every thing that life gives to us, even trying to love it, whatever the thing we have gone through. I don’t know what the future will be, but I think the work might be an end and also a beginning. For you too, I hope.