This essay was originally featured in ISSUE NO. 24 - IDENTITY.

INTERVIEW

All images © Zhang Huan. Courtesy of the artist.

Annette An-Jen Liu: You are most well-known for your performance art, all of which has been incredibly well-documented. How do you see the role of photography in your work?

Zhang Huan: I use my camera to record the process of my performance. In my opinion, what is important in photography is not the camera, but the angle, scale and height from the view of the photographer.

Annette: While Foam is considered to be one of your non-performance photographic series, it is still distinctly performative. What was the process like in developing this series?

Zhang: I held photographs of my family members and myself in my mouth, with my face covered with foams. Every family has its difficulties. There is an old Chinese idiom that every family goes through sadness and happiness, separation and reunion.

Annette: As the series title suggests, there is foam in each of the fifteen images that cover your face. In a previous interview about this work, you drew parallels between the ephemeral nature of foam and the transience of life. Can you expand on this further?

Zhang: Life is like a dream. It is transient. Just like foam, it sparkles and dies out in less than a second.

Annette: Foam features multiple portraits of your own family and your wife’s. Can you discuss the ideas behind this as an exploration of identity?

Zhang: When I would look at these yellowed photographs of my childhood and of the older people in my family, I would always ask myself, “Why was I born into this family? Is it true that my fate had already been determined five hundred years ago?”

Annette: The series presents a range of family photos, including individual portraits at different ages. How do you hope viewers navigate the series? Is it at all chronological?

Zhang: There is no specific sequence in this series of works; I just selected old photos from different generations, different ages, with individual photos, group photos and family portraits. Different photos, different family members, interconnected with each other. Like the roots of a tree, they extend and link together.