| I am a Hong Kong-born, British-based artist, working in film, photography, and video installations. In a recent panel discussion at Tate Britain, I was invited to summarize the deeper meanings of my practice. After much pondering, I recounted an experience I once had of returning home from a sustained period traveling abroad. On my return, I set about rejuvenating myself by taking a long hot bath and doing my laundry. When it came to cleaning my worn-out hiking boots, I took out my Swiss Army knife and started to scrape out the grit lodged in the soles of my boots. I noticed small pieces of stone, sand, and soil falling on the floor, but could not identify the origins of each piece. Nor could I be certain of pieces I may have accidentally relocated from place to place. | 
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Li Dinu
Li Dinu, Episodes of Time, 2007. Video stills, three channel DVD projection with sound, running time: 14:30. Courtesy of ArtSway.I am a Hong Kong-born, British-based artist, working in film, photography, and video installations. In a recent panel discussion at Tate Britain, I was invited to summarize the deeper meanings of my practice. After much pondering, I recounted an experience I once had of returning home from a sustained period traveling abroad. On my return, I set about rejuvenating myself by taking a long hot bath and doing my laundry. When it came to cleaning my worn-out hiking boots, I took out my Swiss Army knife and started to scrape out the grit lodged in the soles of my boots. I noticed small pieces of stone, sand, and soil falling on the floor, but could not identify the origins of each piece. Nor could I be certain of pieces I may have accidentally relocated from place to place. Furthermore, my scraping had caused tiny particles of dust to disperse, floating, and drifting in the atmosphere. This was the best way I could find to describe the essence of my work.
A constant reference point for me comes from a 1940’s novel, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. The book is about society’s attitude toward architecture, reflecting on its relationship to progress and civilization. Its central theme interrogates the chasm between social conventions and boundless creativity. Rand herself made the claim that “man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress.” Between 2006 and 2007 I visited Central Asia several times to research and develop a substantial body of work, including Episodes of Time. On one particular journey, I came across a conspicuously large house along the vast steppes of Kazakhstan, standing in isolated defiance. Upon an invitation to enter the house, a grandfather figure introduced me to every room, on every floor. Thoroughly impressed, I asked the family if their large, structurally sound, and intelligently designed house had been realized with the help of architects and engineers, or perhaps aided by government subsidies. I was told, however, that the house was a result from the family’s own imagination as guidance, without any outside support, nor formal training in construction.
Presented as a video triptych, Episodes of Time reveals a sleeping child in the middle projection, whilst images of hanging steel girders and “supersize” factory structures are projected left and right, enveloping the boy’s momentary tranquillity. The sound design teases out concoctions of intimate family banter, set against distant echoes of machines digging, pounding, and drilling. Typical of some of my other video installations, Episodes of Time was shot in real time, and in this case, increasing a complex viewing experience by virtue of disorientation. Patience is required to digest the visual and sound arrangements, as the very fabric that defines our built environment, is located somewhere inside a zone of expansion and collapse.
The concept of permanence and temporality permeates throughout my practice, and in spring 2008, I produced and directed a video entitled, Dare We Dream of Perpetual Change. The title draws attention to Karl Marx’s theory, that once a revolution has taken place another one should begin, thereby, propelling the world and society into a constant state of flux. In the video, an enigmatic female character fades in and out of different centuries, each time, in the midst of removing her makeup, albeit by varying degrees of success. At times seemingly cathartic and other times quite unceremonious, her rituals are set against the backdrop of decaying interiors. Light patterns form, glancing across a cracked wallpaper, before receding into a deep long corridor. This creation is reminiscent of the fictitious 18th century character Marquise de Merteuil, played by the actress Glenn Close in the film Dangerous Liaisons. In its dramatic conclusion, Merteuil returns home in the dreaded knowledge that the end of an era is upon her, and in despair, begins to remove her makeup.
Back in 2005, I presented my work at a Tate Modern symposium entitled Necessary Journeys. The debate illustrated the many different cultures that contemporary artists engage with in their practice. I presented part one of a trilogy of works investigating the cultural developments in contemporary China, and how this has both influenced and impacted on the lives of the individual and the wider community. My three-channel projection, entitled Ancestral Nation, shows a different type of ritual to the one of applying and removing makeup. It is an attempt to draw out the daily ritual taking place across modern China. Crowds of people are seen in an outdoor public space, seemingly waiting in anticipation. Personal belongings are packed into an assortment of handbags, suitcases, and the ubiquitous tarpaulin bags. In sharp contrast, a yearly state-run ritual is taking place at the birthplace of Confucius. An orchestrated dance and procession mark the great philosopher’s birthday. Categorically, the swirling pattern of people in motion appears intensified by the reduced speed in the video. Concurrently, the restrained, yet omnipresent beats of thudding and rattling, brings into sharp focus the notion of individual dreams against state aspirations.
Each one of the trilogies, as in Ancestral Nation, take their titles from the three most common ways to say the word “country” in Chinese. I am currently hosted by ArtSway in Hampshire, U.K., as a resident artist and am working on part two of a trilogy, entitled Family Village. My investigation was triggered by a media story describing a new housing development in Chengdu, China. Its style mirrored an English vernacular architecture found in the provincial towns of Dorset and Hampshire. The developers in Chengdu, found their design inspiration after receiving a Christmas card from their counterpart, an employee for a British firm, Halcrow. On the cover of the Christmas card was an image of Dorchester. With issues of population in mind, Chengdu’s own Dorchester exists as multi-story, without compromising its quintessential quaintness.
