-- Artist statement
Ryuichi Sakamoto's music inspires the title Where is Armo? The song is for the movie, The Last Emperor. The character Puyi is ruining and looking for his wet nurse, which is called Armo in mandarin. In my work, Armo represents my roots. People in China have a sense of belonging to their roots. They believe birth and death should be in the same place because family and memories are rooted there. I always believed that, but it gradually became my anxiety. My mother is from Chengdu, which is in the southwest of China, my father is from Inner Mongolia, but my parents and I live in Guangdong now (Province above Hong Kong). After the global outbreak in 2020, I returned to China and caught a train in the summer from Inner Mongolia to Guangdong which my father took three decades earlier. I hoped that the same train trip would lead me to the same frame of mind that he had and that it would give me a clue to Armo.
I was born in 1999. Everyone in China was excited to see the new century and what will happen to their country, and what will be changing around them. My family was experiencing and immersed in that period, which went through a huge economic developing background and an immigrant movement in China. The work of my family and my personal memories is an exploration of myself and my generation, which grew in a fast-changing but vague period. My confusion through exploration came out with questions, where is Armo? Where is my root? Where is our root for the Z generation in China?
Weijian, Shi is a senior photography student at California College of the Arts. He was born in Chengdu, And grew up in Guangdong, China. Weijian's early experiences provide a rich source of inspiration for his work, and his complex family structure provides a reliable source for his NEO archive. In His book Where Is Armo? He discusses the concepts of roots and Chinese-style immigration, as well as the sense of belonging among millennials in China's booming economy.
At the same time, Weijian also brings his experimental perspective and sensitive personality into his works, such as Seesaw series. In the latest work, A Pian(American Cut Pieces) Weijian is currently focusing on discussing the stereotype composed of grand landscapes in the post-epidemic era. The artist's inspiration comes from the negative comments on Chinese and American social platforms. Due to the epidemic, international travel has become more complicated, and the grand landscape is not enough to support this bridge of communication, love, and understanding. The artist hopes to present the audience with a more personal and idealized bridge to eliminate political interference through his unique perspective.
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