Zhenye
The City is a mixed-media assemblage constructed through layered painting, intricate hand-cutting, and singed-edge techniques. It archives nearly 100 official news articles and grassroots reports concerning student suicides from 2003 to the present, functioning as a tangible "digital graveyard."
By interlacing fragmented information with simulated, childlike graffiti, the work materializes the chaotic entanglement of internet data. It attempts to bring these silenced narratives to light, rebuilding a city for the lives hidden behind the stories. Within the composition, countless words whisper a truth that is obscured deep within the image—buried in the interstices of letters and lost in the fissures of the paper. While the underlying causes remain unseen, the work compels the viewer to look through the visual noise, confronting a reality that is hauntingly present right before our eyes.