Seeing through springs, you press the shutter (Lee Ka-sing)
In 2014, Fujifilm released a new camera model, the X-Pro 1, with promotion in Hong Kong led by Anothermountainman. His approach was a soft-sell campaign involving fourteen creatives in a collaborative exhibition. Each member from a pair received a camera and could select one lens of his or her choice. The project required each participant to take a self-portrait and also capture a portrait of their partner. This exhibition was showcased at the Hong Kong Arts Centre gallery.
Since both Holly and I were living in Toronto, pairing us was inevitable. I’ll set aside my own self-portrait for now, but the portrait I created of Holly had an elaborate title: “Holly descending a staircase from the third floor to the gallery, about to go out to make a photograph at Trinity Bellwoods Park.” (The staircase reference is a nod to Duchamp.) This piece was composed of 30 small photos, each 2.5 x 2.5 inches, mounted on small wooden blocks and arranged in a single line on the wall, resembling a 30-line poem—except without any text. The title itself served as a descriptive guide for the work, though the images were abstract. The arrangement followed the structure of the title, creating a visual narrative. While a conventional portrait is often a single frozen moment, I wanted to break that convention. This portrait of Holly was an amalgamation of successive moments, not aiming for a literal, sequential portrayal but rather an abstraction.
During a guided tour at the exhibit, someone asked about this. I explained, “Think of it as depicting a mental process.” Some time after the work was created, I attempted to translate it into words. Writing and imagery are completely different mediums with distinct expressive qualities. Translated into text, the description instantly becomes concrete, and the rhythm between words becomes more important. In other words, I crafted a text-poem based on the original title, concept, structure, and progression. Holly loved the poem; perhaps she alone could grasp every detail. I once asked friends to help translate the poem into English, but no translation was successful. Later, Holly and I planned to translate it together, but now, she’s no longer with us. Poetry is notoriously difficult to translate—some poems are easier, some harder, and some simply untranslatable. Classical Chinese poetry, for instance, can lose its essence if even one character is altered, let alone translating it into another language. Poetry is distinct from narrative. Translating classical poetry into vernacular can convey the story but leaves the poetry behind.
My poem, in condensing the visual work into lines, uses sentences that are concise yet complex (as Chris Song described), making translation especially challenging. Recently, while organizing a commemorative project for Holly, I invited Song to translate the poem into English. The initial translation was close to the original, but I adjusted some nuances and clarified phrases that might be hard to understand due to contextual differences. His final version closely aligns with my intent. During the revision, due to differences between Chinese and English in object representation, I chose to let go of certain ideas and switched some subject-object positions. I’m grateful to Bob Black for his advisory input during the process. Translating the poem into another language gave it a new life. I’ve thought about handling these concise yet structurally complex long sentences by rewriting the original thirty lines into a poem of thirty short stanzas. Perhaps this could be a project for the future.
When the poem was first published, the title also included a line reading, “One day in the spring of our 30th anniversary,” subtly hinting the application of the thirty lines. This poem also reflects our shared life since moving to Canada—the trials, setbacks, friendships, reflections, and joys along the way. In my poem, I said she was “seeing through springs,” and, of course, I meant seeing through all winters as well. All successes and failures have transcended into another realm in her own way, which she captured in her work. Despite minimal support from both Hong Kong and Canada, her persistent determination remained unwavering. She pressed the shutter, and, as I would describe it, she bloomed later in life, capturing the joys and sorrows of the seasons. She wrote her final chapter with mature and strong works, creating ripples that continue to extend outward.