This project stems from the tracing of family history. Han Qian explores how multiple temporalities and spaces encounter and intertwine in a specific land through the loss and imagination of a land.

In this video, Han Qian focuses on the predecessor of China Shougang, a pre-republic steel mill whose history has seen several regime changes and the struggle between people and land. It all started with a chance accident – a red ore was discovered and the mountain range that gave birth to it was rediscovered and given meaning. Now that the mine is no longer being mined, this village, which was once born out of the mine, and the people who came for this reason, were eventually left behind in this place, just like these red ores that have fallen silent over a long period of time, what was once the field has long since disappeared.

Qian made several trips to this mining site in Hebei to investigate and film. In this essay film, the artist blurs the perspective of viewing and narration through ‘ambiguous’ personal pronouns, wandering between time and space, and memory and fiction through language. From a rock to a mountain range, a color to a type of matter, a form of knowledge to a language, among those who left long ago, and discarded minerals, these identities and memories continuously sedimented and transformed in nature.

該項目源於對一段家族史的追溯。 透過對土地的缺失與想像，韓倩試圖在歷史中尋找多重的時間與空間是如何在一片具體的土地上遭遇與纏繞。

在這段錄影中韓倩聚焦於中國首鋼的前身，作為共和前的鋼鐵廠，其歷史經歷了幾次的政權更迭以及人與土地的爭奪。 而一切的開始是基於一場偶然的意外── 一塊紅色的礦石被發現，而孕育這些礦石的山脈被重新認識並賦予意義。

如今礦山不再開採，曾經這座因礦而起的村落，為此到來的人，最終和這些經過漫長時間沉積的紅色礦石一樣被遺落在這個地方。

韓倩多次前往這座位於河北的礦山遺址進行考察拍攝，在這部散文電影中，藝術家透過「指涉不清」的人稱模糊觀看與講述的視角，透過語言在不同的時空、記憶和虛構之間遊走。 從一塊石頭到一座山脈，一種顏色到一種物質，一種知識到一種語言，早已離開的人和被遺棄的礦石… 這些身份與記憶在自然中持續沉積，轉換。

Han Qian was born in Wuhan, China and now lives and works in Wuhan. She received her B.A in Accademia di belle arti di Roma, Italy and M.A in École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris, Paris, France. Han Qian’s articles have appeared in LEAP, Boyan Art, Jiazazhi, Special edition Project, ARTBBS, AnayaPost, and other media. Participated in the 2022 residency program at Goethe-Institut Beijing in collaboration with Cache Space; has given lectures and screenings for schools and institutions such as Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Goethe-Institut Beijing, He Art Museum, West Bund Museum; Jiazazhi; shortlisted for the 2022 OCAT Research-Based Curatorial Project in Beijing.

Han Qian’s work as well as reflecting on individual perception and identity memory through multiple times and the threads of history. Attempting to present her creative projects as a constant journey between the past and the present, searching for the possibility of symbiosis and dialogues with the external world and inner experience. The artist often works with her video through photographs, documents as well as writing, the act of collecting and textual writing is a recurring metaphor in her creative practice, and the search for different perceptions of source time always pulls in her writing. The artist employs various mediums such as video, installation, performance, and text.

Her current work revolves around the context of her three-generational family history, examining the genealogy of natural resources, the political discourses behind this historical narrative, and the fates of the individuals who inhabited it.