What we called history or memory, for us individuals, seems to hold two meanings: the first is finding a way for understanding our personal identity from our “past”: the second is to make use of the “past” to help us understand better the reality to which we is confronted. If we push the former to its extremity, it might develop into a notion of destiny and lead us to make history our burden; if we do the same for the latter, then history might on the other hand become a possible tool to help us change the world.

Ye Funa’s works leads us into history. When we are confronted to changes in someone’s life, what wesee is a limit, a border: a person’s “history” seems to come back eventually to its starting point and the spiritual link between predecessors and successors is the historical one. Young artist Ye Funa begins by an introspection into the meaning of herself as a “political destiny”, starting from the observation of her family members and from their historical “overlapping layers”. She inserts the image of herself as a character among the historical photographs, turning time into fiction through the blurring of their outlines and the mixing of their contents – and “me”, “rehearsing” or “escaping” among this series of historical photographs, I am cruising without a starting point or a final destination. Then again, what is the meaning of experience or historical narrative for “me”? If our life did not precede some other people’s lives, and vice-versa, why should we try to get closer to history, why should we crave for it? Ye Funa’s intention is not to “hook up” people and history in a picture from an expanded epistemological point of view, nor does she want to be emotional or to bear witness to anything, but rather she’s trying to excite the prejudices of the viewers towards the identity she defined for herself, and to project it back onto the viewers: her replacement of the images in an historical context questions the limits of “me”, while at the same time deliberately creating a burst seam of an involuntary and silent laugh, turning it into a “machine for thinking.”

历史中的问题青年

郭晓彦

所谓历史和记忆对于我们个人，似乎都有两种意义：第一，是想办法由“过去”找到自己对于自我的身份体认：第二，籍着“过去”来帮助我们更好的理解所处现实。如果前者运用到极致，可能发展成为命定的想法而把历史当作自己的负担；后者如若运用到极致，则将历史当作改变世界的可能帮助。

在叶甫纳的作品中，引入了历史时间。当我们面对一个人的生命变迁，我们就看到了一种限界：一个人的“历史”似乎总要重新回到起点，前人后人之间的精神传承是历史的联系。年轻艺术家叶甫纳正是从对家族成员的观察，从这个历史的“叠合”处开始省察个体作为“政治生命”的意义的。她将自己扮演的形象置入到历史照片人物历史中去，通过重新把他们的轮廓变得模糊不清而混淆并虚构出时间————在这组照片历史的“排演”中“逃逸”的“我”也就游弋在既无起点，亦无终端的时间中。那么，经验或者说历史对于“我”会意味着什么？如果我们的生命并不先于别人，别人也不先于我们，那我们为什么要使自己去接近历史，渴望沟通历史？叶甫纳并非是想以扩大认识论的角度“勾画”人物及历史，也不是抒情和见证，而是调动起观看者对于她在其中所设定的身份的偏见，并将此反射给观者自身，她置换了历史场景后后的图像质问了“我”的界限，又将一种刻意性哑然失笑的破绽构造出来，使其成一种“思考的装置”。

Full Text Download：A youth curious about history 历史中的问题青年