The Haze Diary
Chinese Ink on Rice Paper
The haze diary was made to record the haze data in 2018 in China. Beijing is the city I have grown up with, and I found that this haze data has been a significant position in people’s daily life. People around me will not only share those data on their social media but also will remind each other when we met, I even saw the most popular picture on the internet was the comparison of haze whether’s data between China and other countries. All these changes have attracted my attention to this data which arise more and more frequently in my life.
My materials were Chinese ink and rice paper because haze pollution in China is a characteristic phenomenon that should be represented by the special skills of Chinese painting. From the other side, Chinese ink is an aqueous material that is transparent to show the date underneath.
The Haze Diary 1
Mixed media
200cm x 100cm
2018
This is the detail of the second work in the Haze Diary series. There are 29 rectangles in this square, which were based on the calendar of February, and each one of them corresponding to that particular date in that month to represent the air quality level. The values of grey equal the level of air pollution on that day, lighter the better, and vice versa. The two rectangles in the left-bottom corner, which were divided into two triangles, represent the special situation where the haze might change during the day. I chose the color grey because sometimes when I go outside in a day with serious air pollution, it seems like a grey dome is on top of the city.
