Name: Outside of the Window
Date: September 2014
Size: 42cm * 20cm 42cm * 23cm 40cm * 58cm
Type: Computer graphics
Concept
In the late 20th century, the trading of Chinese commercial houses had just started and many inland housing estates were still in a blank. Back then, there were only two ways for people to seek a place to live: rent a public house or wait for the working unit to assign a house. Due to the limitation of housing resources, the houses assigned by the unit also changed their locations often. Because of this, many Chinese people were in a displacement state of frequent moving and had no fixed living place between the reform to the prosperous development of the housing estate industry in the early 21st century.
Inspiration
I remember that there was a magazine named Mickey Mouse in my primary school years, whose roles were all living in a virtual metropolis named Duckburg. The city’s each street, road sign and even every traffic sign was lively. Influenced by Duckburg, I also started to use our daily observations and my memory of the scene to create one city that belongs to myself. I also drew the details of the city’s hospital, port and stations. I drew them every day without stopping. At that time, I had been living in the city created by myself freely for a long time.
Creative Thinking:
It has been over ten years since my primary school life, during which I had moved my house four times from renting a house, getting an assigned house to buying a house. Many drawings of that time were not saved. It wasn’t until my university years did I discover three works about the city accidentally. I became extremely excited. As these drawings were created years ago, the scenes on the drawings were no longer clear. Therefore, I decided to combine my perspectives of watching the scenery outside of the window in my constant moving in the past decade with these three drawings, so as to change them completely into new works, commemorate my childhood life and reflect over the influences of the policies at that time on people’s life.