关于《某日某地》和《回忆》这两个作品，是什么激发你的创作灵感？
我天生敏感，有很多梦很多心思很多想法。生活是艺术的创作者，我不过是把她的创作纪录下来。随处可见的灵感，听音乐、看戏、逛街、品八大的画、茶余饭后的胡乱聊天…… 我慵懒地把这些所思所想用摄影的方式纪录下来。做这事是我生活的必需，就象吃饭睡觉一样自然。有时候我想我可能是为了纪录这些而出生吧。所幸的是，有人为我的自言自语喝彩，让我得以继续以这种状态生活。我觉得艺术家就是一群衣食无忧，好逸恶劳，无所事事的人。作品只是内心一个人的灵魂所感受的表象。我描绘的是我内心的风景，那里有只属于我的空谷，而作品的意义难于言说也无须言说，明白的自然明白，不明白的也不需要明白。转换成文字一定是有偏差的，我所享受的是纪录不是描述。所以我只大概说下最初触发我做这些照片的想法。
《回忆》时常觉得某时某地某物都是熟悉的，但是这种感觉是瞬间的，再深究却无法抓住。所以我很唯心的假设了一下，人、动物、还有有生命和没生命的物品不断变换的只是驱壳，核心的是恒久不变的。我们这群人、这只杯子、这棵草早已在星球存在了n多年了，我们谁都从未曾真的离去过，只是换了个皮囊重新又回来。自己未曾记住上一次生的时候的经历。命运是网状不是线状。在佛教里面，生死是相对的，是轮回。所以死也就是新生，死去的灵魂也许仍然活着在想他们的前世，今生，和来世的记忆碎片。 通过“逝”思考“生”。
可否请你谈一下最新的作品，或是最近在从事什么创作，还有灵感的来源？
新作品名叫《梦游》，这组作品的标题用了“梦”的字眼，我想用我的照片演绎一个有关青春的童话，在春日午后一次转瞬既逝的梦境中，纯美童话般的梦境。我象建筑师一般建造一千零一夜的一千零一个梦，添上花园，水池，喷泉，建造幻想中的仙境。画面中没有寒冷没有孤独没有忧伤没有悲凉，有的是一片彩色梦境般斑斓瑰丽的朦胧。我已消逝的少女的青春思绪、曾经的初恋、对未来的憧憬，以及我所向往的闲散、舒适……我二十几年生命中所有一切的美好，一切耀眼的明朗都放在作品中。我赋予作品生命，希望她更多的是给人增加暖洋洋的和美好的记忆，使人们在一定程度上暂时忘掉生活带来的伤痛和疲惫。也希望您看过作品后忘记创作作品的我，忘记作品中夏日午后紫禁城里被耀眼阳光淹没的怒放荷花以及远空中升腾的蘑菇云，只留下天真烂漫暖暖的美好和一丝朦胧的喜悦。
尽管从《回忆》系列《某日某地》到《梦游》系列在形式上有很大的变化，但是这种梦幻般的朦胧和以前的作品还是有某种心理上的贯通。用的手法同样也是将可能的现实置于美丽的虚幻之中。
可否请你提供一篇中文的札记，描述一下自己跟作品的关系？
我安静、温和。喜欢简单的生活。我在考入中央美院前一直在做设计。这份工作稳定、拥有世俗上无限的光明的前途。但我性格中的不安定和忧伤情绪等等这些核心的东西使我总觉得受束缚。我希望拥有非常单纯的工作和宁静的生活。后来发现艺术创作可以使自己满足，完成之后剩下的事交给画廊做就可以了。所以毕业后我选择自由职业。我平时活动范围不大，“大隐隐于市”，更象个都市中的隐居者。我擅于用敏锐细腻的心去感受周围的人和事。我喜欢用相机和电脑描绘自己的梦想和情感、传达对世界的看法。因此读我的作品，就像是走入我内心最隐秘的地方。相比宏大叙事，我更关心的是生活和感受，也尊重热爱我们的传统文化。我想做出比较好看,比较舒服,比较安静的作品。现在生活节奏太快,每天会发生着很多事,我的作品能让人们稍微慢一点，在这个浮躁的社会, 给人一点喘息的时间。我很认同周作人所说的这段话“我们于日用必需的东西以外，必须还有一点无用的游戏与享乐，生活才觉得有意思。我们看夕阳，看秋河，看花，听雨，闻香，喝不求解渴的酒，吃不求饱的点心，都是生活上必要的——虽然是无用的装点，而且是越精炼越好。”用心做艺术，艺术地生活。
Current Perspectives,1998-2008,Liu Ren
Fotofest2008
Regarding “Someday Somewhere” and “Memory,” what inspired you to create these pieces?
I was born to be a sensitive one with a great deal of dreams, thoughts and reflection. Life is the author of art and I’m just tracking records for her. Inspirations found everywhere, listening to music, theatergoing, strolling along the streets, appreciating Zhu Da’s paintings, chewing the fat in easygoing time—I track all these down leisurely with my camera.It’s indispensable for me to do that, just as natural as eating or sleeping. Sometimes I even feel that I was born for it. Fortunately there are people who acclaim my soliloquy and make it possible for me to keep this kind of living. I deem that artists are the ones having no concern of subsistence, indolent and being at an idle end. Works are just the representation of feelings of one’s soul. What I’m representing is just the scenery inside of me, I’ve got a secret valley there only for myself, it’s hard to tell the exact meaning of my works and moreover there is no need for it. What is clear then it’s clear, if not then let it be like it is. There have to be deviation when translated to words, I enjoy the recordation not the description. So I’m just going to talk about the ideas generally that inspired me to make these photos at the very beginning.
「MEMORY」 I always feel that it’s familiar to me with sometime, somewhere or something but the feeling is quite instantaneous which can not be penetrated in-depth. Thus subjectively I assume that the continuing changes in human beings, animals, things with or without life are just the bodies but the core is immutable. All we folks, this cup or this individual grass have been existing on earth for long, none of us has disappeared actually, it just comes back again with another body. One has never memorized the experience in his previous life. Destiny is reticular not linear. In Buddhism life and death are relative, just transmigration. So the death is another form of life, the souls that have gone might still be alive thinking of the fragments of the memories of their preexistence, this life and the next life. To think of “life” with “death”.
「SOMEDAY SOMEWHERE」This series of works is a memorial ceremony of my own youth, the inspiration comes from the memories of the childhood and teen-age.
The colors that bearing the weight of memories make me feel warm. With this series of works I make the recordation of the good times of my youth, the shining days, the dreamlike dazed scene and the juvenility and nuttiness at one time or another.Life is impermanent, there’s no too much happiness in it cause there’re so many things that are not fine. It was positive and ignorant of me when we were children, then there came too much pain and things left much to be desired while we grew up, sometimes we’d rather forget some things but sometimes we have to remember. Nevertheless it’s hard to distinguish the circumscription of what to forget and what to remember. I’ve abandoned the pain of describing life. I string the beauty and splendor of life with photos.
Can you talk a little about your latest work, or what you’ve been working on, and your inspiration?
My latest work is named 「SLEEPWALKER」, the title relates to dreams, I just want to deduct a fairy tale about youth—the pure fantasyland in an instantaneous dream in a Spring afternoon—with my photos.There’s no cold, loneliness, sorrow and desolation in it, all it has is just the obscuration with gorgeous colors of dreamland. My girlish feelings bygone, the first love, the hope for the future and the longing of laze and leisure—all the goodliness over two decades in my life, all the dazzling lucidity are placed in this series.I endow my works with life, expecting them to give people the good and warm memories and to release their pain and exhaustion in life provisionally in some degrees. At the same time I wish you forget about me as the author of the works, the water lilies in the Forbidden City submerged by the glaring sunshine in the summer afternoon, the mushroom clouds rising in the sky and just keep the childlike warmth and some indistinct joyance.
Although the forms have changed a lot from the series of 「MEMORY」 to 「SOMEDAY SOMEWHERE」 and to 「SLEEPWALKER」, there’re still some kind of psychological transfixion between the dreamlike obscuration and The former works and with the same technique which is to lay the possible reality in beautiful shadow of a shade.
Can you provide us with a Chinese journal/diary piece, describing your relationship with your work?
I’m quiet and suave. I like simple life. I’d been doing works of design before I went to study in CAFA. That work was steady-going with a bright future in earthliness. But the essence inside my character such as instability and feelings of melancholy make me feel chained.I aspire after a simplex job and a peaceful life. Subsequently I found that the creating of art could satisfy myself and the gallery would deal with things left for me, thus I decided to be a professional after graduation. Usually I live like a hermit in the big city with limited scope.
I’m good at sensing people and things around with a sensitive and exquisite heart. I like to represent my dreams, feelings and express my point of view about world with my camera and computer. Therefore when unscrambling my works, it seems that you are approaching to the most cryptical space of my heart. Relative to grand narrative I’d rather pay more attention to life and individual feelings and also I respect our great cultural tradition.I just want to create works beautiful, comfortable and tranquil. The rate of life now is too fast and too many things happen day after day. My works can slow people down a little bit and give them some time to breathe and feel in such a blundering society. I quite agree with Zhou Zuoren’s saying :”We do need a bit of unpractical pastime and enjoyment besides requisite of daily life and then our life shall seem to be interesting. We watch the sunset, the river in autumn, the bloom of flowers, listen to the drops of rain, smell the fragrance of flowerage, drink the wine which does not quench our thirst , eat the refreshment that can not feed up fully. All these are indispensable of life—though they’re unpractical decorations, the finer the better.” Create art with my heart, live my life artistically.
