Rubbed Scenery
Cai Dongdong
蔡东东
Production date
2014
Object Detail
Media
C-type print
Measurements
38 x 55 cm
Notes
Photographer Cai Dongdong works with archival and ‘found’ photographic images. In 2019 he told an interviewer, ‘I think the process of photography includes the fusion of Yin and Yang, negative and positive. The act of taking a picture is Yang, while the production of the image inside the darkroom is Yin. Photography is both.’ Works in this series are from his collection of old photographs, hand-coloured and manipulated to suggest the ephemeral nature of temporal and spatial realities, ghostly memories of times and people long since vanished. Cai says, ‘I applied various methods according to different pictures: engraving, rubbing, curling, or making a photography installation with other objects. I tried all I can to save these pictures by giving them new meanings. Each picture was printed by hand. I looked them over and over to explore their inner dramatic structures, or even another space.’
Accession number
2015.572