Revisiting the warm Paradise 重访暖天堂
2023-2024, installation, text, cartridge paper, charcoal, pencil. 2023-2024，装置，文字、墨盒纸、木炭、铅笔。造雪（一）。
Comment 1: “When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the way to imagine paradise was to look back at history, at the greenhouse-like past. At bedtime, she always described to me the colorful life back then. I thought I had forgotten these stories as I grew up, but this picture brought back my memories. Now I remember that my grandmother told me that people in the old days would make a lot of effort to turn water into snow just for fun. Ironically, in this ice age, we need to struggle to turn snow into water for survival.”
评论1：“小时候，我的祖母告诉我，想象天堂的方式就是回顾历史，回到那温室般的过去。睡前，她总是向我描述那时五彩缤纷的生活。我以为我长大后就忘记了这些故事，但这幅画让我回忆起了往事。现在我记得祖母告诉我，旧时的人们会付出很多努力，仅仅为了娱乐而将水变成雪。讽刺的是，在这个冰河时代，我们需要努力将雪变成水来生存。”
造雪（二）。
Comment 2: “I know that in this picture it looks like artificial snow partially erases the scenery. It’s easy to assume that the snow is blank and that no meaningful information can be extracted. However, as a hunter who has been in the snow for a long time, I would say that this is far from the truth. For example, you need to learn to identify snow bridges by reading this “blankness.” It’s a matter of life and death, because, snow bridges are one of the most dangerous things in our world. Two of my colleagues were killed by falling into the hollows under snow bridges. You need to observe very carefully to detect them. If there is a sign of sinking in the snow, then it means that there may be a hollow underneath that you should not approach. Sometimes sounds can also give you clues. When you hear the sound of running water coming from below, it also means there may be a hollow underneath.”
评论2：“我知道在这幅画中，人造雪部分地抹去了景色。人们容易认为这些雪是空白的，不包含任何有意义的信息。然而，作为一个长期在雪中生活的猎人，我会说这远非事实。例如，你需要学会通过解读这种‘空白’来识别雪桥。这是生死攸关的事，因为雪桥是我们世界中最危险的事物之一。我的两位同事就因为掉进雪桥下的空洞而丧命。你需要非常仔细地观察才能发现它们。如果雪面有下沉的迹象，那就意味着下面可能有个空洞，你需要远离。有时候声音也能给你线索。当你听到下方传来流水的声音时，也意味着下面可能有空洞。”
造雪（三）。
Comment 3: “I have a congenital leg disorder, so I need to stay in the shelter all the time. When I looked out the window, all I could see was a boring white world. That’s why I grew up hating snow. But slowly, I realized the greatness of blank white: emptiness means infinite possibilities and white snow is the perfect canvas for the imagination. I became obsessed with fantasizing what the world covered under snow and ice would look like. That’s why I feel an uncontrollable rage when I look at the landscape in this picture. Although others marvel at the lush vegetation in the landscape, it kills my imagination — the only amusement in my life. Thankfully, it gives me some relief that the artificial snow partially covers the landscape. This is a rescue for my fantasy.”
评论3：“因为先天性腿疾，我需要一直呆在庇护所里。当我望向窗外时，我只能单调乏味的白色世界。这就是为什么我从小就讨厌雪。但慢慢地，我意识到了纯白的伟大：空虚意味着无限的可能性，白雪是想象力的完美画布。我变得痴迷于幻想被雪和冰覆盖的世界会是什么样子。这就是为什么当我看这幅画中的风景时，我感到了无法控制的愤怒。虽然其他人对风景中的茂盛植被感到惊奇，但这却扼杀了我的想象力——我生活中唯一的乐趣。幸运的是，人造雪部分覆盖了风景，这让我感到了些许宽慰。这对我的幻想来说是一种救赎。”
建设中的蓄水湖。
Comment 4: “I wonder if the curator has designed the exhibition room as a bright white box to mimic the style of museums in the olden days. To prevent snow blindness, we who live in the snow and ice always need to wear goggles in our daily lives. I have gradually become accustomed to life with goggles. When I occasionally take them off, I find that I can no longer adapt well to bright light. However, during the exhibition, in order to have a better view of the pictures, I couldn't help but take off my goggles. It didn’t take long before I found myself in tears. I don’t know if these tears came from the stimulation of the bright light of the exhibition room or from jealousy of a warm past — in those crazy days, people even built lakes to store precious water for snowmaking.”
评论4：“我想知道策展人是否将展览空间设计成了一个明亮的白盒子，以模仿旧时代博物馆的风格。为了防止雪盲症，在日常生活中，生活在冰雪中的我们总是需要戴上护目镜。我也逐渐习惯了有护目镜的生活。当我偶然摘下护目镜时，我发现自己已经不再能够很好地适应强光了。但是，在展览期间，为了更好地观看画作，我还是忍不住摘下了护目镜。不久，我发现自己泪流满面。我不知道这些泪水是因为展览室明亮的光线刺激，还是出于对温暖过去的嫉妒——在那些疯狂的日子里，人们甚至建造湖泊来储存宝贵的造雪用水。”
滑雪场中的徒步。
Comment 5: “When we have to hike on snow and glaciers in the mountains, we have to be connected by ropes to move forward. Long trips in the mountains always exhaust me as a newbie. Whenever I have trouble keeping going, I focus on my breathing. Then I often enter a meditative state. My body movements become more harmonized, which helps me keep up with the team. I often jokingly imagine and reassure myself that with every breath I take I am adding greenhouse gases to the world, making the next warm era come earlier.”
评论5：“当我们必须在山中的雪地和冰川上徒步时，我们需要通过绳索连接起来才能前进。作为一个新手，长时间的山地旅行总是让我筋疲力尽。每当我难以继续前进时，我就会专注于我的呼吸。然后我常常会进入一种冥想状态。我的身体动作变得更加和谐，这帮助我跟上团队的步伐。我经常开玩笑地想象并安慰自己，每呼吸一次，我就为这个世界增加了一些温室气体，使下一个温暖时代更早来临。”
在滑雪场中滑雪。
Comment 6: “Life in the world of snow and ice is quiet. In this world, the few sounds that exist often signify danger. The whistling of ice cracking underfoot, the clicking of snow crushing branches high above, and the whimpering sound as a prelude to an avalanche—when we hear these sounds, we need to be careful. The sounds of this world always startle and scare me. Therefore, I would love to hear the soundscape of a ski resort in this ancient warm paradise in this picture. Whatever it sounds like, it must have been joyful.”
评论6：“在冰雪的世界里，生活是寂静的。在这个世界中，仅存的声音往往预示着危险。脚下冰面开裂的啸声，高处雪压断树枝的咔哒声，以及作为雪崩前奏的呜咽声——当我们听到这些声音时，我们需要格外小心。这个世界的声音总是让我震惊和恐惧。因此，我很想听听画中古老温暖天堂中滑雪场的声景。无论它听起来如何，一定是充满了欢乐。”
为冰川消退而举办的哀悼会。
Comment 7: “Every New Year, we dress up, take bells and horns, and make lots of noise in the valleys. This is our custom. We hope to scare away the spirits of snow and ice, welcoming warm days. When I see people from the old times playing music to mourn the retreat of glaciers, I am not surprised. We are all essentially the same, always more concerned about the things we are losing or have lost than savoring the things we still have.”
评论7：“每逢新年，我们都会盛装打扮，带上铃铛和号角，在山谷中制造许多噪音。这是我们的习俗。我们奢望借此驱赶冰雪精灵，迎接温暖的日子。当我看到古时的人们演奏音乐，哀悼冰川的退却时，我并不感到惊讶。本质上我们都是一样的，总是更关心我们正在失去或已经失去的，而不是品味我们仍然拥有的。”
There have been enough artists using melting of glaciers and snowfields as a motif in their works to convey warnings of climate change to the public. Beyond that, it is also meaningful to further explore our complex relationships with ice, a special type of water medium, through art.
In this light, I develop an art project titled “Revisiting the warm paradise.” In this project, instead of demonstrating a hot future, I start with the imagery of the “earth entering a new ice age after a long, long time.”
“Revisiting the warm paradise” consists of drawings and texts. It presents a fictionalized exhibition with the same title from a future ice age. The theme of the exhibition is the history of the snowmaking industry in Alpine ski resorts. The exhibition features my ethnographic sketches of today’s Alpine snow-making industry. The sketches are drawn based on my research and excursions to ski resorts in Austria. The texts show the comments of the future dwellers on these sketches. I fictionalize these comments by combining my embodied experience of a high mountain tour in the Alpine glaciers and snowfields, interviews with local dwellers, and my readings.
For Melody Jue, conceptual displacement is a science fictional strategy that aims to reveal the limitations of the terrestrial bias within our thinking by reimagining common concepts of media studies in an aquatic environment. We often overlook that ice is a special kind of water. Specifically, glaciers and snowfields are both aquatic and terrestrial. In other words, they are amphibious land and amphibious environments. Likewise, by understanding what the dwellers from the future ice age think and feel about today’s snowmaking industry, we might further rethink our relationship with ice and challenge our mindsets that have become conditioned to dry, warming terrestrial environments.
已经有足够多的艺术家在作品中使用冰川和雪原融化的主题来向公众传达气候变化的警告。然而，进一步探索我们与冰这种特殊水介质的复杂关系也同样有意义。
基于这种考虑，我发起了一个名为《重访温天堂》的艺术项目。在这个项目中，我并不旨在展示一个炎热的未来，而是从“地球在漫长岁月后进入一个新冰河时代”的想象开始。
《重访温暖天堂》由绘画和文本组成。它呈现了一个来自未来冰河时代、同名的虚构展览。展览的主题是阿尔卑斯滑雪胜地造雪产业的历史。展览特色是我对当今阿尔卑斯造雪产业的民族志素描。这些素描是基于我对奥地利滑雪胜地的研究和考察绘制的。文本展示了未来居民对这些素描的评论。我通过结合我在阿尔卑斯冰川和雪原进行高山旅行的亲身体验、与当地居民的访谈以及我的阅读，来虚构这些评论。
对于梅洛迪·朱而言，概念置换是一种科幻策略，旨在通过在水下环境中重新想象媒介研究中的常见概念来揭示我们思考中的地球偏见的局限性。我们常常忽视冰是水的一种特殊形式。具体地说，冰川和雪原既是水生的也是陆生的。换言之，它们是两栖性的。同样，通过理解未来冰河时代居民对当今造雪产业的思考和感受，我们可能会进一步重新思考我们与冰的关系，并挑战我们已经适应的干燥、变暖的陆地环境的思维定势。