Two rivers, two poets, one ocean — a father and daughter defy distance through verse.
"The river Lek reminded me of the river Xiang in my hometown Changsha. I had not been home for 3 years and one of the connections with home was the poems my dad wrote me every day via WeChat. The rivers seemed equally significant for the people in the Netherlands and in Changsha. They are both a romantic connection and an important symbol of daily trade and industry. In a Wechat session my father and I simultaneously read three pairs of poems we wrote for this occasion, he by the Xiang and I by the Lek. Giving the words to the waters that ultimately will meet somewhere in the ocean. The video shows fragments of the performance which took place at the same time in Changsha and Culemborg in June. The full-length documentation is presented as a dual-screen video installation. The three poems written by me can be found on the page "Writing"."
Direction
Split-screen synchronicity across continents.
Cinematography
Lek and Xiang rivers as living characters.
Director
Yiyi Chen
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Lek and Xiang never actually meet; they're separated by 5,500 miles. The ocean convergence is poetic license — or prayer.
WeChat's ubiquity in Chinese diaspora communication makes this a distinctly 21st-century meditation on ancient themes of exile and return.
CN
NL
