[On Shan Hai Jing] by Holly Lee
Parks, like libraries, are gems in our city. Bountiful and beautiful.
I’ve been wanting and waiting to photograph them. It took me ten years
to realize this is my response to Shan Hai Jing. Shan Hai Jing,
literally translated as Collection of Mountains and Seas, is an ancient
literature on geography and mythology in China.
After the law of
constant change is the law of birth, death and re-birth. How much has
our world changed since the first century? How does a person of the 21st
century view the world with vision pondering the present, future, and
past? Rewind, fast-forward and pause.
Ancient travelers had
mighty encounters. They described them with their own understanding that
could be shocking, confusing and most often misinterpreted. Yet we are
inspired, and even enriched by the same ambiguous, enigmatic 2000 year
old texts.
My passage is not guarded nor ruled by time. Moving
between the real and the imaginary, springing and bouncing off the
trampoline to create free falls. Geographically speaking and timing wise
it started from Latitude 43.643996, Longitude -79.427669 in the year of
2010.
(2013)