Rose Rose

Rose Rose No.1-8 Photograph 140x 140 cm./each 2008

Rose, Rose

2008–2011

Photography, Performance, Video, Installation

Rose, Rose is one of Lin Jingjing's most significant long-term bodies of work, developed over more than a decade. Through the simple yet unsettling act of sewing together rose petals, Lin places repair and injury, preservation and deterioration, hope and failure within the same process.

The thread reconnects what has been torn apart, yet in doing so creates new wounds. The gesture seeks to prolong life, while simultaneously reminding us of its inevitable disappearance. The paradox embedded in the work is not merely symbolic; it emerges from an observation of reality itself. Many of the things we attempt to preserve are transformed precisely through the act of preservation.

While Rose, Rose extends the concerns with vulnerability, loss, and traces of existence first explored in My 365 Days, the artist's perspective begins to move beyond personal experience toward broader questions of human existence.

In an era increasingly devoted to healing, restoration, and optimization, Rose, Rose reveals a condition that is both widespread and often overlooked: many things are not altered by loss alone, but by the very efforts made to sustain them. The work marks an important shift in Lin's practice—from an exploration of individual vulnerability toward an ongoing inquiry into the conditions of human existence.

《玫瑰玫瑰》2008-2011，摄影/行为/录像/装置

《玫瑰玫瑰》是林菁菁持续十余年的重要创作系列之一。林通过缝合玫瑰花瓣这一简单而反常的动作，将修复与伤害、维系与损耗、希望与失败同时置于同一过程之中。

缝线连接断裂，却也制造新的创口；试图延续生命，却不断提醒生命终将消逝。作品中的悖论并非象征性的修辞，而是关于现实本身的观察：许多我们试图维护的事物，往往正是在维护过程中发生改变。

《玫瑰玫瑰》延续了《我的365天》中对于脆弱、失去与存在痕迹的关注，但艺术家的视角已不再停留于个体经验本身，而开始转向更广泛的存在处境。

在今天这个不断追求疗愈、修复与优化的时代，《玫瑰玫瑰》揭示了一种广泛存在却常被忽略的现实：许多事物并非毁于失去，而是在被努力维系的过程中发生改变。《玫瑰玫瑰》标志着其艺术实践从对于个体脆弱性的观察，逐渐转向对于人类存在条件的持续追问。

In the Rose Rose photography series, every rose has been sewn together.

Roses are normally showy, dazzling spectacles, but the stitches on the petals here present us, through an infinitely serene approach, with an unadorned display of injury.

Maybe the stitches are there to keep the roses from withering and to extend the time before they bloom? Maybe the stitches are there to solidify their beauty?

At that moment when the needle penetrates the flower petals, the small cuts that appear bring feelings of shame and remorse, as if we are watching wings broken just as they are about to take flight. There is a persistent heaviness here, an inescapable feeling of helplessness.

Regardless, those glaring stitches, stuck so deeply into the flower petals, create a sense of dynamic injury taking place upon a static exterior. Under the warm gaze of light, these wounds tell of unfathomable contradictions.

That light in the darkness – that’s right, I designed that theatrical lighting – is it a penetrating gaze, or just mere perplexity?

--Lin jing jing Notes on " Rose Rose "

在《玫瑰玫瑰》系列摄影作品中，每一朵玫瑰都被缝合过。

玫瑰原本总是以盛放、华丽的姿态出现，而这里花瓣上的缝线，却以一种近乎平静的方式，将伤口毫无遮挡地呈现在我们面前。

也许，这些缝线是为了阻止玫瑰凋谢，延长它绽放的时间；也许，它们是为了固定那稍纵即逝的美。

然而，当针尖穿透花瓣的瞬间，那些细小的切口所带来的，却是一种难以言说的羞愧与惋惜。仿佛我们正看见一双翅膀即将起飞，却在起飞前被折断。

作品中始终弥漫着一种沉重感，一种无法逃避的无力感。

无论如何，那些深深嵌入花瓣的醒目缝线，在静止的外表之下制造出一种持续发生的伤害。温暖的光线凝视着这些伤口，而伤口则诉说着某种难以言明的矛盾。

黑暗中的那束光——没错，那是我刻意设计的戏剧性灯光——它究竟是一种洞察一切的注视，还是仅仅源于困惑与不解？

——林菁菁《玫瑰玫瑰》创作笔记

Lin Jingjing's empathetic method is applied to inanimate objects in her photography and performance art series, Rose Rose.

In the photographic series, she uses red string to stitch the petals of fresh rose buds, and presents the intricate stitches and wounds on the flower petals, demonstrated both beauty and pain, through massive, high-resolution subjective pictures. The pain alluded to in these vivid details alludes to mankind's violent destruction and exploitation.

Lin proceeded to make six videos that show the process of the sewing of the roses in slow motion. Despite the pain immersed in the moment of piercing, the video’s colors are vibrant and sweet, again evoking a sense of paradox.

When Lin was invited for a solo exhibition in the National Fine Art Museum of Chile in 2011, the country had just been traumatized by a catastrophic earthquake in 2010.In reaction to the earthquake and its damage, Lin adapted Rose Rose into a collaborative performance piece. She invited one hundred survivors of the earthquake to participate. On the day of the performance, Lin prepared three hundred fresh roses and asked the participants to sew their petals. They were then asked to leave the room and bring their roses into the adjoining room, where participants eventually lined up their sewn roses on the floor.

The performance was staged again in Monza, Italy, and Hong Kong, both times in open-air spaces. In Monza, after the participants had sewn the roses, Lin instructed them to raise both their arms while carrying the roses and stand on one foot, and try to remain still for forty minutes. Within thirty minutes the participants began to fall one by one as their bodies gave in to the pain. The performance ended as all participants sat up after the last standing person had fallen.

In Hong Kong, the performance took place in multiple locations, where the participants were invited to bring their roses with them as they return to different parts of the city after the sewing.

“Things” have memory. Its murky air can represent very personal memories, or the cultural memories of a generation. It can bring a sense of belonging to every ordinary moment, or it can bring about inexplicable terror. For a brilliant, radiant life, it is more like a cruel joke.

One must know that life is very fragile, very easily damaged. Violence, imprisonment, even persistence can turn into the most dangerous and unseen form of injury.

Though roses have sharp thorns, they are fragile. They are innocent and helpless. They look uneasily towards the uncertain future. They are wholly unprepared to be harmed, and they cannot take it.

Hope and hopelessness, love and pain, life and death, struggle and surrender, nurturing and destruction…only a fine line stands between them.

--Lin jing jing Notes " Dress "