2013年受巴黎世界非物质文化遗产展览邀请，我携带夏布观念摄影《幻化》参加展览。展出后，作品获得了国际金奖,在欧洲引起广大学者的极大关注。那次展览主题十分响亮，名叫“遗产与疆界”，不由得令人耳目一新。
就“遗产”与“疆界”来说，这甚至是一对矛盾体。因为就前者来说，“遗产”恰是特定“疆界”的产物。而此次展览再提“疆界”之概念，其实要说的乃是“遗产”在当代的“疆界”，即“文化大同”的问题，让“遗产”成为世界共同的“遗产”，再无“疆界”。
对于此，我是部分赞同的。“遗产”的当代新生，必得跨出自身“疆界”获有更广阔地域发展，这已是时代命运之使然。但即使如此，我却还是心存疑虑。
有此参展经历，再到世界各地，我便十分留意各大博物馆的藏品。在这些博物馆中，有我熟悉的，也有并不认得的。但这陌生或熟悉并不是我所看重的。而关键就在于，为什么它们便汇聚到了一处呢？
In 2013, I was invited to participate in the World Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition in Paris, where I presented my conceptual photography work Illusory Metaphorphoses featuring Xiabu (traditional grass cloth). After the exhibition, the work was awarded an International Gold Medal and attracted significant attention from scholars across Europe. The theme of that exhibition was strikingly titled Heritage and Boundaries, a name that felt both refreshing and thought-provoking.
When it comes to “heritage” and “boundaries,” they are in fact almost a pair of contradictions. Heritage, by its very nature, is the product of specific boundaries. By reintroducing the concept of “boundaries,” this exhibition was in fact addressing the contemporary boundaries of heritage—that is, the question of “cultural universality”: how heritage might become a shared legacy of the world, no longer confined by borders.
I partially agree with this perspective. For heritage to be renewed and reanimated in the contemporary era, it must indeed step beyond its original boundaries and develop across broader territories; this seems an inescapable destiny of our time. Even so, I cannot help but remain somewhat doubtful.
After this exhibition experience, and through my subsequent travels around the world, I began to pay close attention to the collections of major museums. Among these museums were objects that felt familiar to me, as well as others I did not recognize. Yet this sense of familiarity or unfamiliarity was not what truly mattered to me. The essential question was: why had all of these objects come to be gathered together in the same place?
National Treasure, Torso of a Bodhisattva, AD 5th century, Pakistan
永恒微笑的造像：复制时代的国宝
我拍摄大足石刻，因为佛像之中有许多有趣的象征和隐喻。重庆有大足石刻，这在中国乃至世界都是规模较大的佛教造像集群。正由于有这些造像的存在，重庆和其他地区有所区别，但具体是什么不一样，我始终也说不清楚。文化就是这样一种事物，一旦融入到地域你再难将它隔离开来。在今天，在互联网时代，若为了解和观看，我们完全没有必要远赴重洋，去看这些“石块”。但即使在网络上很容易便能调出图像，我还是愿意亲临现场去观看它们。
早年时候，我曾创作观念作品《十二生肖》。当初创作作品，正在于我对兽首引发争议事件的回应。在创作中，我先到圆明园废墟现场拍摄取景，后经由互联网，我再将兽首图像调了出来，并将这些生肖头像与它原处位置并置一处，“归位”和“复原”。在互联网时代，拼贴并置非常容易。但通过作品，我其实在想人们为何在事件中会有如此激烈的反应，“相”与“实物”问题引发了我的兴趣。后来再逛世界各大博物馆，我问自己，也问这些造像，但佛像永恒微笑着，笑而不答。
The Eternal Smile of Sculpted Figures: National Treasures in the Age of Replication
I photographed the Dazu Rock Carvings because the Buddhist statues contain many intriguing symbols and metaphors. Chongqing is home to the Dazu Rock Carvings, one of the largest ensembles of Buddhist sculptures in China and indeed in the world. It is precisely the existence of these carvings that distinguishes Chongqing from other regions, although I have never been able to clearly articulate exactly how it is different. Culture is like this: once it becomes embedded in a place, it is difficult to separate it from that locality. Today, in the age of the internet, if our purpose is simply to understand or to see, there is no real need to cross oceans to view these “stones.” Yet even though images can be summoned effortlessly online, I still choose to be physically present and experience them on site.
In my earlier years, I created the conceptual work Twelve Chinese Zodiac Signs. The motivation for this project was my response to the controversy surrounding the bronze animal heads. During the creation process, I first went to the ruins of the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) to photograph the site. Later, through the internet, I retrieved images of the animal heads and juxtaposed these zodiac sculptures with the locations they originally occupied, thereby “returning” them and “restoring” them to their place. In the internet age, such collage and juxtaposition are technically very easy to achieve. Yet through this work, what I was really questioning was why people reacted so intensely to this event. The issue of the “image” versus the “physical object” deeply intrigued me. Later, as I continued to visit major museums around the world, I posed this question both to myself and to these sculptures. The Buddha figures, however, merely maintained their eternal smiles—smiling, yet offering no answer.
National Treasure, Pilgrim Sudhana (Shancai tongzi), Ming Dynasty, China
世界的还是民族的？
文化遗存是世界的还是民族的，这的确是个问题。世界化正在发展，而世界化在文化层面带给人首要的感觉便是“无疆界”。经由现代传媒，各大博物馆存放的“国宝”变作数字信息，而其所在博物馆则沦为存放和展示的“库房”。这点看来，造像仿佛获有了“法身”一般。这种乐观是当代“复制”技术造成的，我们也身处于“复制的时代”。复制既是技术，本身又是一种社会现象。而经由复制，关于“相”更是区分出了“真身”与“法身”。不止于此，复制昭示出的更是现实的权利，即对“真身”掌握的同时也拥有了“发布权”和“阐释权”。
至此，如果真如“文化国际主义者”所说，这些“遗产”放置在哪里都无关紧要，更是可以归还母国了。但现实中，这些国宝首先是经由掠夺而脱离本身“疆界”的。即便在今天，经由正当外交途径，返还之路也是遥遥无期。在逻辑与现实间，文化大同主义者却有它现实的一面，呈现出其对“权利”的迷恋。另一方面，对母国来说，这些被切割后掠夺到西方的国宝，它们残留的基座和崖壁，像一个个疮疤，刺痛着人们的内心。
所谓“国宝”，不是抽象之遗迹，它是特定区域个体与历史连接之物，它激发出的是对自身历史在场的深切感受。这种“在场”和“场域”共同形成文化与心理，它们存在于现实而非想象之中。经由它们，映衬出的是民族自身文化的血脉。
遗产走出疆界，它的确获有了世界性的发展。但这其中，却实有“主动”与“被动”之分别。在复制主导的时代，若说“疆界”已经消失，这只是美好的愿景，是世界大同的虚幻和想象。现实情况却是，“疆界”真实并稳固地存在于人们心中。这不是领土之争，这实实在在只是一种群属共通的情感。而这种情感，却无论如何不具有世界性。
Global or National?
Whether cultural heritage belongs to the world or to a particular nation is indeed a question worth asking. Globalization continues to advance, and at the cultural level its most immediate impression is that of “borderlessness.” Through modern media, the so-called “national treasures” housed in major museums are transformed into digital information, while the museums themselves are reduced to repositories—storerooms for preservation and display. From this perspective, sculptural images seem to acquire something akin to a dharmakāya, a spiritual body. This optimism is brought about by contemporary technologies of replication, and we are, undeniably, living in an age of replication. Replication is both a technology and, in itself, a social phenomenon. Through replication, the issue of the “image” further differentiates into the “original body” and the “spiritual body.” More than that, what replication ultimately reveals is a form of real power: to possess the “original” is simultaneously to possess the power of dissemination and the power of interpretation.
At this point, if we were to follow the claims of “cultural internationalists,” then the physical location of these “heritages” would no longer matter, and they could just as well be returned to their countries of origin. Yet in reality, these national treasures were first removed from their original “boundaries” through acts of plunder. Even today, the path to restitution through legitimate diplomatic channels remains long and uncertain. Between logic and reality, cultural universalism reveals its own pragmatic dimension—one that exposes a fascination with power. On the other hand, for the countries of origin, these national treasures, severed and taken to the West, leave behind bases and cliff faces that resemble open wounds, scars that continue to pierce the collective psyche.
So-called “national treasures” are not abstract relics. They are objects that connect individuals within a specific region to their history, evoking a profound sense of the presence of that history. This sense of “presence” and the “site” together shape both culture and psychology; they exist in reality rather than in imagination. Through them, the living bloodstream of a nation’s own culture is revealed and sustained.
When heritage crosses its boundaries, it does indeed gain a form of global development. Yet within this process there is a crucial distinction between the “active” and the “passive.” To claim that boundaries have disappeared in an age dominated by replication is merely an idealized vision—a utopian illusion of a harmonized world. The reality is that boundaries continue to exist, firmly and tangibly, within people’s minds. This is not a matter of territorial dispute; it is, quite simply, a shared emotional bond within a community. And such an emotion, no matter how one frames it, can never truly be universal.
National Treasure, Jain Svetambara Tirthankara in Meditation, AD first half of the 11th century, India
后记
在观念摄影作品《国宝》的创作中，我以世界各大著名博物馆的佛教造像为形象，采用正负像手法，借用胶片形式予以呈现，其最终要传达给观者一种宁静、庄重的视觉效果。与之前取材大足石刻的观念作品不同，这次所选取的佛教造像是脱离文化母国的博物馆藏品。虽以“国宝”命名，它们却已经超出“国”的疆界与概念，成为了世界共有的宝藏。但对于此，我始终是质疑的，于是，我找到胶片这样一种现成物象。
在我看来，胶片及复制技术，这是我们如今讨论一切文化的起点。拥有“国宝”的西方国家，正像手握负载“相”的原版胶片。复制即是权利。
Postscript
In creating the conceptual photography series National Treasure, I use Buddhist sculptures from major museums around the world as visual subjects. Through the use of positive and negative imagery and the adoption of a film-based format, the works ultimately seek to convey a sense of calm and solemnity to the viewer. Unlike my earlier conceptual works drawn from the Dazu Rock Carvings, the Buddhist sculptures selected here are museum collections that have been removed from their cultural homelands. Although titled National Treasure, these objects have already transcended the boundaries and very notion of the “nation,” becoming treasures shared by the world. Yet this is precisely what I continue to question. It is for this reason that I turned to film—a ready-made material object—as a means through which to articulate this doubt.
In my view, film and technologies of replication constitute the very point of departure for how we discuss all culture today. Western countries that possess these “national treasures” are much like those who hold the original negatives bearing the images. Replication is power.