Shiyao
Back in 2019, I was asked by my psychologist friend to be an interpreter for a female victim of human trafficking, who now suffers from PTSD. My job was to assist the patient to go through court assessment and therapy sessions. During the first session, the patient was hardly trusting me, therefore she remained very quiet. When she looked at me, I could not feel any emotion from her eyes - if there is any, then it’s pure emptiness. It shocked me: I thought I was looking into an abyss rather than a pair of beautiful eyes. Her soul was empty and her mental state was on the edge - the term “Limbo” appeared in my mind. Just one light push, she could fall into the abyss; but it take so much more effort and strength to pull her back from the edge.
For my BFA show, I decided to bring up the topic of human trafficking to evoke social awareness. Besides that, I also wanted to discuss trauma itself - when we talk about trauma, what are we exactly talking about? Do we really know what we think we know? When we convince people to "move on", are we aware of how selfish and cruel these words could be?
From the patient's description, she was suffering from paralysis at night, but she didn't dare to go to the doctor because she’s worried the doctor would also do harm to her. During daytime, she's afraid to go out or expose herself to the sunlight. If she had to go out for necessity, she would wear wig. She cried so many times, but decided to tell no one about her story because of shame. She tried hard to recover her life by reading, watching new TV shows, and exploring other hobbies like other people do. But no matter how hard she tried, the panic always came back to attack her, disassociated her from what she’s doing, and left her completely hopeless. “It feels like I’m moving forward, but after a while, I realize I’m still standing on the same spot.” Her words turned into picture in my head, and I could see her hopelessly walking in her house, wanting to move on but afraid to get hurt again. This inspired me to make the scenario she described to me, to mimic her status inside her house and to feel what she felt.
I decided to use a box that represents the patient's house, and to create miniature furnitures inside the house. Since the patient feels herself disassociated from her body, I wanted to create a "here, but not here" feeling by using hologram to portray her status of disassociation. I used myself as a model of her, recorded the movements she described to me in front of a green screen, then cut it in After Effects. Afterwards, I imported the video file into iPad.
To create the holographic affect, I have done lots of research. I bought a piece of glass, inserted it 60 degree to the "floor" inside the box, then attached the iPad on to the top of the box. I looped the video on iPad. When the environment gets dark, the girl would appear. The hologram became very clear in the dark (however, it would be hard to be caught by cell-phone camera), meanwhile it created an illusionary feeling of the girl compare to all the other solid objects around her.
When God closes a door, he also opens a window for you. So people from the outside could see how pathetic you are.
This project was first exhibited inside black gallery, SJSU. I had many people came up to me and asked me how I achieved such result, because they think it's so mysterious and surreal. The second exhibition was taken place in B4bel4b in Oakland. I got lots of wonderful feedbacks from the visitors, some of them even shared with me their similar PTSD experiences. To create means to initiate hard but meaningful conversation, and that’s the exact reason why I wanted to do this project.
