“Can we live here forever?” “我们可以一直活在这里吗?”, 2023
Hand-painted bamboo curtain, wire, aluminum alloy, magnets
72 x 2 x 78”

Beaded bamboo curtains became popular with décor trends that incorporate symbols of Eastern philosophy and the fantasia of East and South-East Asian and cultures emerged throughout the 20th century. Popular imagery on curtains include ying-yang symbols, Buddhas, bamboo, tropical trees, waterfalls, islands, and beaches. These motifs and lands were often conjured as a form of escapism and fantasy as these curtains give the illusion that one can walk through to another world.  

In this piece, Zhang created a bamboo curtain based on a photograph she took during a childhood trip to Mount Lu (庐山). Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, Mount Lu is renowned for its significance to Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, its influence on generations of poets, artists, and politicians, and its dramatic natural scenery. Zhang recalls this visit as the moment she felt most connected to the motherland as land: mountains, stone, water, and earth rather than the urban environments that had shaped much of her experience. By the time of the trip, she had already immigrated to the United States. Captivated by the landscape, she asked her family, “我们可以一直活在这里吗?” (“Can we live here forever?”), an awkward translation of English wording into Chinese. The question carried an awareness that the trip would end, and that her experience of it was shaped by the rosy lens of tourism. As the painted beads sway, negative space opens between them, forming an elusive portal to a Mount Lu that exists somewhere between memory and imagination, a site where nostalgia mingles with amnesia.

Installation photos by Darren Rigo.