Unforgettable Memory

"The starting point of my video Unforgettable Memory is 1989, the 11th year after reform and opening-up in China. Various kinds of social issues came out, which led to the dissatisfaction of the common people, and gave rise to the student anti-corruption patriotic movement. The people generally complained about the bureaucrat and social corruption.

Unforgettable Memory is involved with my personal experience. In 1989, during my sophomore year in college, I joined that student movement and recorded some of the scenes with my camera then. The majority of my works are related with my individual experience and memory; I use the clue of memory to connect history and reality. Some of my other works are based on this principle too, like A Day to Remember, Floating memory, Is Fighting Our Machine, etc.

The video was recorded in University of Beijing and on the streets of Beijing. It took a whole day to be recorded and it has never been exhibited in China. I am an independent artist, and many of my works are forbidden to exhibit in China.

In the real China,“1989” is still a subtle topic nowadays. For self-safety or for pursuing reality, people tend to carefully avoid mention it. Many of the young generation even have no idea of this period of history because of the artificial cover-up and concealing by the government. Every year, when the 4th June approaches, the related departments strengthen control and patrol around the Tiananmen Square. The silence and missing of the memory have become today’s reality and source of regret.

Depressed by the national machine, most people have lost their memories, some of them become silent, some of them become numb. I would want that these images could awake our memory and recover our conscience. We can’t build our future based on lies. I hope I could discuss the history and memory of Chinese people and express some of my individual feeling using images. From 1989 to 2009, Chinese economy developed rapidly, while some social problems became more severe than 20 years before. I hope we can resist this indifferent society with our memory."

Liu Wei in a statement to PLATFORM:VB (August 2014)