Shen Xin

This is the first film in a series of works by the artist to engage with ways of coming to knowledge of the ecosystems of language. Its Chinese title translates directly as "the sky rained grain," the phrase used by the legendary Cangjie to describe the creation of Chinese characters, as recorded in the Huainanzi. Its first short film, but this is the language we met in, is where trees, teeth, and spoken words cross beyond the threshold of re-relating. Many elements in the film are of a learning process, of a word’s relation to language, a language’s expression to another, of wood in room returning to tree in soil, of teeth evoking bone memories — its 400 million year evolution from fish scales, of working together, and of a new story revealing itself. Instead of coming to terms with or tracing the complexity of a loss, the series proposes a different position in relation to the pain of losing.

A Canadian teacher in China, juggling two relationships, becomes entangled with a pair of small-time crooks as the consequences of his choices begin to close in on him.

The film shares intimate moments of friendships, in between time for various forms of labour, with groups of men amidst urban infrastructures in Chengdu, Sichuan. The working group whose stories the filmmaker’s father identifies strongly with, are engaged through the songs of vocaloid singer Oliver, narrating excerpts of Yukio Mishima’s “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion”, while omitting symbolic enunciation. Accompanied by friends and families’ journeys through parts of Portugal, the filmic time extends into life forces who emerge on site and are already apart of.

ས་གཞི་སྔོན་པོ་འགྱུར། (The Earth Turned Green) is a film by Shen Xin centered on restorative practices drawn from the Tibetan language through performance, land and family histories. Shen’s work explores relations outside of nationalistic belonging. Their recent research focuses on multitudes of the self and the other, as well as the interrelationship between culture and ecology. [Overview courtesy of the Swiss Institute]

Filmed in Northern Isle of Skye, bearing fruit of fondness is a 16mm black and white film hand processed with a type of invasive cotoneaster that is native to Eastern Asia, and was brought to the UK in the 19th century as an ornamental plant. Working with elemental kinship, the process guides a capacity to relate to pain while grounded in the understanding of interdependence, where concept of belonging erodes through patterns of mother-child relationships that extend to nation and citizen, land and dweller. The film features a single-take vocal performance of the script in Chinese by Shen Xin, interspersed with breath and stillness against the Southwest storms heard from their home.