Illness and "Imagine"
Video Installation | 2'00" | 2019

Artist statement
探索你对疾病的“想象”。将疾病概念化,它是一种状态或载体,将人与外界紧密联系;它也是隐喻,反映人类行为与社会行为。
This video installation aims to explore people's attitudes towards disease and the metaphors behind illness. Humans might imagine disease as a symbol of evil, or a kind of thing would be punished. They might imagine diseases as alienated or deviant states. Illness also can be associate with the state of unbalance and disorder, while the kind of disorder is exactly what the body is bound to happen, which is normal. So-called illness and life-and-death issue are natural, while permanent stability is chaos. Imagining illness in various perspective that you can attain different feeling.
Artist & Director
Florence Tan Xingyu
Scriptwriter
Florence Tan Xingyu
Photo by
Florence Tan Xingyu
Camera
Tony Zhang Huachen, Leo Ruan Zifeng
Cast
Zhu Yue, Chen Yijing, He Jiaying
Screening & Exhibition
2019 Presented in Microcosm || Magnetism, SCM MFA Show 2019, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, Hong Kong





# Disease is one of the manifestations of abnormal differentiation and division of cells, as well as the manifestation of the imbalance of the immune system. I associate illness with unbalance or disorder. In fact, the unbalance represented by the disease is exactly what the body is bound to happen, which is normal. So-called illness and life-and-death issue are natural, while permanent stability is chaos.
# Humans imagine diseases as alienated or deviant states.
# Humans imagine disease as a symbol of evil, or a kind of thing would be punished.
Visual elements and presentation of photography
Person, cloth and plastic bag are selected as the subjects of the photos, and they present the posture of waiting for death. In all the photos, there are unhealthy elements in the background or circumstances, such as the trees that were blown down by the typhoon. Or good environments and half-dead people. The reason for choosing plastic bags and clothes as the characters of non-living elements is to reflect environmental and social issue. For instance, plastic bags are made by human beings, but they are often not properly treated after being used. They are abandoned in the nature for years, waiting for oxidation, and finally helplessly become something that pollutes the environment. According to the “evil” metaphor of disease, their half-dead status reflect most people’s fear of getting disease, who unwilling to face and waiting for death.