• Camouflage Syndrome

    军用迷彩症候群

    2022-

    In modern warfare, the residual explosives, heavy metals, fuels, exhaust gases, and chemical and biological weapons left behind are major sources of military pollution. These substances quietly seep into the soil, vegetation, water bodies, and living organisms. Their harm is often slow and insidious, with some effects only becoming apparent after several generations.

    This is a long-term project focused on military pollution. In recent years, I have visited regions in the Middle East and West Asia that continue to be ravaged by conflict. Taking bomb craters as my core sites, I explore from a more subtle perspective how war seeps its damage into the land, plants, animals, people, and time—attempting to capture the traces of life and emotional echoes that were wounded and disrupted by the flames of war, yet have never truly vanished.

    现代战争中遗留的残余炸药、重金属、燃油、废气以及生化武器,是军事污染的重要来源。这些化学物质悄然渗入土地、植被、水体与生物体,其伤害往往缓慢而隐匿,有些影响甚至要经过数代生命才能显现。

    这是一个长期关注军事污染的项目。近年来,我走访中东、西亚等持续战乱的地区,以弹坑为核心现场,从更细微的层面探寻战争如何将伤害渗透进土地、植物、动物、人群与时间,试图捕捉那些在战火中被创伤与扰乱、却从未消散的生命痕迹与情感回响。

    1


    Materials:Paper, leaves collected from war zones, barbed wire, etc.

    2025

    Camouflage is a militarized mimicry of nature — a visual code designed to conceal, where politics and ecology collide. In contemporary conflict zones, armed groups continually develop new camouflage patterns that encode shifting allegiances, frontlines, and ideologies. While soldiers disappear into the landscape, these patterns become visual triggers of instability and trauma for civilians.
    I collected leaves near bomb craters in war-affected regions across the Middle East and West Asia — leaves twisted, discolored, and marked by chemical and thermal scars. Through disinfecting, cutting, and reassembling them into fragments of the camouflage patterns I encountered, these plants no longer serve concealment. Instead, they register the land’s chromatic response to violence: camouflage turning against itself.
    I also repurposed rusted strands of barbed wire retrieved from former battlefields into clothes hangers, evoking the intimate gesture of dressing in camouflage—the friction of fabric against skin, the pull of metal, the puncture, the pain.

    1

    材料:纸本、采集于战区的树叶、刺绳等

    2025

    迷彩是军事系统对自然语言的挪用与占有,它也是阵营的皮肤,成为政治与大自然的交叠图层。在沙漠、树丛、海洋里,迷彩图案是帮助士兵隐匿于环境的隐身衣,对平民而言,反复更迭的迷彩反而是最强烈的视觉警报和创伤触发物。我在中东和西亚战争地带的弹坑附近收集了各种植物叶片,它们扭曲、变色,并带有化学或热力的伤痕。我将这些叶片消毒、裁剪、拼贴成当地士兵常用的迷彩图案。这些由异变了的植物构成的迷彩,不再是为战争服务的伪装,而是土地对战争的显色反应——是伪装本身的崩解。此外,我用战场上一根生锈的铁刺绳做成了衣架,想象着总有士兵在穿脱迷彩军装时,会感到拉扯与刺痛。

    2

    材料:松木、弹片、钢铁

    2024

    我在旧战壕、民宅遗址与农田中收集弹片,并将其锻造成一把铲子和一把锄头。我与科学家合作,具体分析了几处战地土壤中的污染物成分,并筛选出几种具备针对性修复能力的当地植物,如向日葵和紫花苜蓿。我曾使用这两把工具,在一处空地上耕种上述植物。

    然而,播种与拍摄过程因地处布满未爆炸弹和地雷的区域,被军方巡逻人员中止;出于安全和内容敏感的双重考虑,我被要求删除所有记录。之后,我为这两件工具配上了腿骨形状的木柄。

    2

    Materials:Pine wood, shrapnel, steel

    2024

    I gathered shrapnel from old trenches, the remains of homes, and farmland scarred by conflict. I forged this debris into a shovel and a hoe. In collaboration with scientists, I analyzed pollutants in several areas of war-affected soil and identified local plant species—such as sunflowers and alfalfa—with specific phytoremediation capacities. I used these handmade tools to sow those plants on a small patch of land.
    However, the act of planting and documenting was abruptly halted by military patrols, as the site was suspected to be filled with unexploded ordnance and landmines. For reasons of both safety and political sensitivity, I was asked to delete all records. Later, I attached wooden handles shaped like femur bones to the two tools.

    3

    Materials:Resin, steel rope, etc

    2024

    Every bomb crater is the product of a momentary violence, yet its presence on the land far outlasts the blast—scarring the surface with the residue of war. In large-scale conflicts, craters become so numerous they seem insignificant. Yet to any individual life, a single crater is immense—too large to bear.I mapped and measured several bomb craters across war zones, then created negative-form models based on their contours. These models confront the viewer with the transformation of destruction—how military calculations and irreversible bursts of energy are inscribed into the landscape as topographic structures.This negative form of the crater also serves as a memorial to the entities damaged or erased in the explosion.

    3

    材料:树脂、钢丝绳等

    2024

    每一个弹坑都是瞬间暴力的产物,其存在周期远超出战争时效,沦为土地上的伤疤。在大规模战争中,弹坑多到微不足道,但对生命个体而言,每一个弹坑又太大,大到生命无法承受。我在多个战区实地测绘了弹坑的轮廓,并据此制作了它们的负形模型,让人能够直视战争通过军事计算与不可逆的能量释放,将伤害转化成的一种地貌结构。这个弹坑的负形,同时也是对那些在爆炸中受损、抹除的实体的纪念。

    4

    Materials:dry grass, carbonized plant fragments, building debris, paper bags, etc.
    2025

    I collected charred remnants of plants scorched by warfare and ground them into fine powder on-site. This carbon dust was applied to the surface of a paper bag, combining with pale dried grass and fragments of shattered architecture. Together, these materials formed a night sky image—one shaped not by astronomy alone, but by fire, scorched earth, ruins, and the enduring residue of war.

    4

    材料:枯草、碳化植物碎片、建筑碎屑、纸袋等
    2025

    我收集了在战火中碳化了的植物残骸,就地将其研磨成粉,涂覆于一个纸袋表面。与浅色的枯草、建筑碎屑共同构成了当天星空的图像——一个由地表战火、焦土、残骸与废墟共同塑造的夜空。