Borders Invisible, Casualties Tangible

Zhongxu Chen

School of Art – MFA 2 – Photography and Media

This project is based on a real-life experience that I had in the summer of 2022 when I encountered a group of gangsters and undocumented immigrants along the border of Ecuador and Colombia. Derived from this unusual trip, I developed the project Borders Invisible, Casualties Tangible, which recounts the story obscurely in a less narrative way but with a more mysterious tone, based on the fragments of memories and the remnants of objects. I construct the show as a tunnel of flashbacks to provide both a public space to unveil my experience and a private domain to withhold my emotions. This exhibition is designed not just as the aftermath of what I went through but a progressive process of how I handled it. As abstract and amorphous as memories can be, one tends to reshape, alter, and eventually forget what actually happened, especially when certain events are associated with strong sentiments. Without any concrete proof, all I can resort to are the things left with me. Pivoting the physical objects as a reference point, I wish to reexamine the subjects of border, violence, crime, wealth, freedom, and hope. I view this exhibition as a starting point to further develop the project and rediscover the multifaceted surface of a complication that cannot be abbreviated.