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Silence brings us together
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Silence brings us together.
沉默使我们相聚Over thirty years ago, in 1990, a hijacking-induced air disaster took place at Guangzhou Baiyun Airport. The news reports on the following day did not publish photographs of the aircraft’s disintegration captured at the scene. It was only over the course of more than a decade that related images gradually emerged in subsequent coverage. As the event’s photographs continued to circulate through media, the photographer became historically detached from the work. Tracing the individual behind these archives and reconstructing the dissemination process of the images thus formed the impetus for this project.
"Silence Brings Us Together" is a fiction-based visual work grounded in historical materials—it revolves around an investigation into a series of visual archives left by Wang Hui, the journalist who captured the scene. Using the authenticity of the hijacking event and the tension between truth and falsehood in images as threads, the author expands on the impact of the incident on Wang Hui’s life through archival material and fictional narrative. Through sequencing and design, along with various manipulations of images and materials—including the erasure of faces—the complexity and ambiguity of memory and truth are heightened. The work seeks to examine the intricate relationship between press images and personal archives under the broader theme of “the archive and the fictional.” Where does the power of media’s role in society and its narrative authority originate? Can the photograph and the photographer truly be separated from the subjects they represent and articulate? When viewing news photography presented from a documentary perspective, can we focus solely on its photographic qualities while disregarding its journalistic content?
The work also tells the story of an individual creator overshadowed in his professional environment—the journalist, who is also the author’s father. By re-engaging with his father’s past through a mode of “being there,” the author explores their relationship from a third-person perspective. This act of commemorating someone thus becomes an act of self-positioning—a way to situate oneself within spatial, temporal, and socio-historical relations.
Of course, these materials remain inadequate when it comes to history and truth. As Batchen notes, “To obtain the full sensory experience of involuntary memory, the photograph must be transformed. Something must be done to the photograph, to bring it (and us) back from the past into the present. The subject of the photograph must undergo a similar transformation, from a person merely seen to one truly felt, from an image on the wall for distant viewing to an intimate emotional exchange within.” This compels us to reconsider the role of media in society and the source of its narrative power. This incompletely told visual tragedy, like a character whose physical body has perished but whose symbolic death remains unresolved, haunts our surroundings like a ghost—only silence allows us to gather together.
距今30多年以前，1990年的广州白云机场发生了因劫机而引起的空难事件。第二天的新闻报道并没有刊登现场拍摄到飞机解体的照片，而是在后续长达十几年的报道中，才陆续刊登了相关现场的照片。事件照片通过媒体的不断传播，拍摄者从作品之中被历史剥离。找寻到档案背后的拍摄者，以及回溯整个事件的传播过程，便成了这个作品的起因。
这是一个基于历史资料的虚构影像作品——作品围绕拍下现场照片的记者王晖所留下的一系列影像档案的调查展开，以整个劫机事件的真实性和图像的“真与假”为线索；作者通过档案和虚构的故事，补充出了这次劫机事件对王晖生活造成的影响。通过编排和设计，对各种图像和材料的处理，包括对人物的面部的抹除，强化了记忆和真相的复杂性和模糊性。作者试图探讨在“档案与虚构”的宏大命题下，新闻图像与个人档案间错综复杂的关系。媒体在社会中的角色及其背后讲述的力量是来自哪里？照片及摄影师本身是否能真正与其所指向和表达的主题相分离？当我们观看以纪实视角呈现的新闻摄影时，又能否只关注摄影性而忽略新闻内容呢？
作品也讲述了在工作环境中被埋没的个人创作者的故事，这位记者同时又是作者的父亲。作者以一种“在场”的方式重新回溯父亲的过去，以第三角度的视角在探索父子之间的关系。这种铭记某人的行为，其实也成为了一种作者自我定位的行为，一种对自己于空间、时间及社会历史关系中的位置的确证。
当然，就历史和真相而言，这些资料同样于事无补。正如巴钦所言，“要获得完整的非意愿性记忆感官体验，必须对照片进行改造。必须对照片做一些处理，将它（和我们）从过去拉回到现在。照片的主体也必须进行类似的转换，从一个仅仅被看到的人变成一个真正被感受到的人，从在墙上用以远观的图像变成内心深处的情感交流。”这迫使我们再次思考媒体在社会中的角色及其背后讲述的力量。这一篇未被完整诉说的悲剧影像故事，如仅仅肉身陨灭但还未在符号界完成死亡的角色一样，幽灵般萦绕在你我的四方，只有沉默能让我们相聚在一起。