Brief Encounters on the Milky Way
Single-channel video, 2017, 05:00
Standing Alone, digital photography, Xiaowen Zhu, 2017
Brief Encounters on the Milky Way documents the peculiar encounters of an astronaut character walking on iconic Essex Road in East London. At once a mixed community and rapidly-gentrifying area, Essex Road witnesses daily routine and urban changes, absorbing solitary and collective actions tacitly and evidently. This astronaut character is elaborately dressed and bizarrely choreographed, evoking a sense of foreignness and otherness. On the one hand, he/she undoubtedly disturbs a number of random passengers on the street, in an almost hilarious way; yet on the other hand, various people find the ‘astronaut’ amusing and approachable, especially children and young adults. Switching between walking down the street and standing behind a large window front, the ‘astronaut’ appears to be a test of tolerance and openness towards something unusual, unfamiliar and unexpected.
The project is commissioned by Tintype Gallery, London and supported by Arts Council England.
EXCERPT
Brief Encounters on the Milky Way
by Xiaowen Zhu
no one comes from nowhere
here i am
walking on the unfamiliar land
my view
different from yours
seeing stranger things
they bounce off the daily routine of local pedestrians
who are so comfortable with their surroundings
that they have constructed throughout their lives
which appear to be foreign to me
*naturally
am i an astronaut or an astonishment
i wonder
wishing to be both
in the glimpse of brief encounters on the milky way
my way
going away
wait
wait
wait
wave my hands
after you wave yours
those small, gentle hands of yours
like the first blossom of yellow tulips in the faraway field
wanting to be caressed by my silver gloves
the very ones that are touching the screen in front of me
the screen is cold
by the way
i stay
for my new friends
no matter if i’m understood or not
hundreds of languages
not enough to communicate
we only need the simplest gesture
such as walking between two places
building a connection with a warmth of contact
like introducing two friends
one, two, three
ten, twenty, thirty
i’m losing count
of the stars on the milky way
on my way
going away
wait