I began conceptualising this project in December 2024, shortly after my first visit to London. The initial inspiration stemmed from discovering familiar urban landscapes within an unfamiliar city, as well as questions of identity that arise when setting foot in a foreign land for the first time. Once the idea had taken shape, however, I struggled to find a suitable way to express the inner turmoil I felt. Thus, the ‘Mycelium’ came into being; virtually all my work from 2025 to 2026 can be regarded as part of this project.

For degree show, I will present three works, all created from inspirations that emerged during my time living in Glasgow.

000X 

A collection of video clips from DVD playback

Year: 2026

During the summer holidays of 2025, I came across a large stack of DVDs containing family home videos; only a handful of them still played. When I watched the footage, I realised how unfamiliar my past self seemed; when set against the reality of the recordings, my hazy memories were riddled with inconsistencies—my past was not at all what I had imagined it to be, and this came as a shock to me. It was then that I realised: all the memories of the past that we construct in our minds may simply be a reconstruction and reinforcement of our self-awareness in the present; we firmly believe that certain events occurred in the past, and that these events are the reason we have become who we are today. Yet, are these pieces of information, which exist solely within our brains, truly accurate? Are they mere figments of our imagination, or do they reflect objective reality?

Lingering 

2-channel video, 16min

Year: 2026

This piece serves as a summary of my time studying in Glasgow, as well as a brief farewell. My wandering between my homeland and Scotland has led me to reflect on the similarities and differences between the two places. It is quite remarkable that, although I am aware of the vast differences between them, I always seem to be able to discern subtle similarities in certain aspects—such as the new buildings in the city, or the waterways that flow through it. I suspect that our urban spaces may, to some extent, be remarkably similar. As I wander between cities and nations, I seek to capture things that even I cannot quite put into words.

The Overwritten Floating Island 

Records of My Autoethnographic Research

Year: 2026

It originated in the winter of 2024, during a location scouting trip to the River Thames with several artists and curators. Standing by the riverbank, gazing through the December mist towards the Isle of Dogs on the opposite bank, I was struck by a realisation: those modern high-rise buildings looked, at first glance, almost identical to those in the Nanshan Science and Technology Park. In that instant, I was gripped by an indescribable emotion—encountering a scene in a foreign land that bore such a striking resemblance to the place where I was born and raised evoked not mere nostalgia, but a more complex and ambiguous psychological tremor.

I have always harboured conflicting feelings towards Shenzhen. My parents were not native to Shenzhen; they were ‘outsiders’ from different provinces who had travelled south to find work on the wave of reform and opening-up, meeting and settling down in this young city—a microcosm of countless ‘second-generation Shenzhen’ families like mine. For a long time, I have felt uncertain about my sense of belonging. Even though I grew up within the Cantonese cultural sphere, I find it difficult to regard myself as a ‘true Cantonese’, while my parents’ hometowns have become too unfamiliar to me. I personally refer to this situation as ‘the immigrant issue within the Chinese context’.