My 365 Days           1200 x 250 cm            2003

Lin Jing jing's "My 365 days "

Lin Jingjing’s photographic work perhaps alludes to art emerging in a different form. In terms of symbolic documentation, it has the power to restore certain things which have been lost, and in a certain way, to make them eternal. Often an artist’s activities in conceiving and completing an artwork are aimed at neutralizing the destructive force of death, including every form of death, from the “microscopic” to the “massive”, from the most symbolic to the most real. The power of art can truly turn death into an opportunity for rebirth. Perhaps there still remains a bit of anxiety. Collecting and recording a part of the body as an act of preservation has an almost eccentric, ritual order to it. No matter how complete and beautiful it appears, there is still the pressure of loss and fear.

The death of others and the disappearance of material things hit us so hard because they represent our own death. Losing loved ones and things forever is no different than a part of ourselves dying. In this light, the funerals held for others are nothing more than a disguised form of mourning for the self. It seems as if Lin Jingjing hopes to use her photographic works to remove the veil that prevents us from seeing and recognizing this mechanism, bringing us directly into individual existence and the source of pain.