XINYU LI

ABSTRACT

 

Nightmares, or horror, for me, constitute much of my dreams. But I experience them as vehicles, manifestations through symbols in a representational world, which is always better than the horror of the real world. Most of the time, I feel calm and comfortable with them. 

In this journey, I devote time to find out the origins of my monstrous world, in order to understand them in culture, how they stem from my personal experience, and how they shape me and who I am. The relationship between me and the ruins form nightmarish spaces, becoming the carrier of my anxiety and fear, and turning into the external manifestation of mediating trauma. In looking at these origins, I hope to guide the audience to understand how my nightmares and fears formed and spontaneously think about their own monsters, whether personal, cultural, or inherited.  

My thesis project started with getting a chance to visit a small village called Mantin (which means “full-field” in Chinese), in which my grandpa was born and raised. It was the second time I had ever been there; the trip gave me a fresh feeling for the village and awakened a lot of old memories from my first childhood visit. With the development of urbanization, people pursued more convenient living environments and better economic conditions, so the rural population gradually shifted to cities. The village had become half-abandoned. While walking around and talking with local people, I noticed different abandoned buildings had been left behind for different reasons: historical, political, and cultural. Compared to the first visit, in the second visit, I saw more ruins in the village. Some "fresh" ruins had not even been covered with thick dust; the voices I could hear from people in the village were far less in number than the first time. When I visited the village for the first time as a child, I saw the ruins of these buildings; I was deeply impressed and became interested. That interest lasted for a long time and still continues.

As a person with social phobia, I often feel anxious and fearful of social activities, which makes me feel out of place in public. I suffered from depression a few years ago and it caused me to leave school for a period. Since then, I started to have nightmares quite often.  This anxious emotion triggers me to have nightmares, in which I would visit the ruins and get to know other monsters living in the "Outland." This is a self-protection mechanism, but also a relief. However, when I woke up from those dreams, I was again surrounded by anxiety, sinking in a negative closed loop. The Outland is actually quite positive and redemptive as an open space, but the reality is closed and hard to escape. How to find a path between dreams and reality to face negative emotions is the question I hope to explore.