,

Safe In The Arms Of Power: An Interview With Qin Jin / Qin jin &Katherine Oktober Matthews / 2017

Safe In The Arms Of Power: An Interview With Qin Jin
Author / Qin jin &Katherine Oktober Matthews

In her series Enigma, Chinese photographer Jin QIN (b. 1976) revisits the anxiety of youth. She places symbols from her school years in astronomical settings, creating light-hearted digital collages that merge the complexity of human problems with the naiveté of childhood. We sat down with the photographer at Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival, where her series is currently on display in the group exhibition Uncertain Traces, to learn more about her work.

 

K: How did you begin your project Enigma?

Q: I started this series at the end of last year. At first, I made some of the objects for the photographs, like the badges that you see on the school uniforms and then I made the pictures. All of the elements I use are from when I was a teenager. This is because when I was in school, the ideologies that the school taught me were hard to understand and digest. So, now, I’ve gone back to that time to try to think about how I can try to understand and digest those ideologies now.

 

K: What are those ideologies? What was your experience of being in school?

Q: I have very complicated emotions towards the era in which I was living. I was born in 1976, so the Cultural Revolution had not taken effect yet, and I feel complicated towards the ideology of that time. Sometimes I even remember feeling safe in that society. You can feel like you are living in the centre of everything, like there is nothing else … that’s the feeling. But it’s complicated because, you need your father but sometimes you need to say ‘no’ to him.
I feel a fear of power and also a desire for that power. It co-exists, so it’s very complicated. You know you are restrained, but you also feel safe.

 

K: Do the pictures represent arriving at an answer, or is it more about the exploration?

Q: The question still remains in my heart. Maybe for some important part I’ve arrived at an answer, but mainly I still have doubts about it. It’s kind of about a re-enlightenment, because when I was young, my mind was filled with all the ideologies, and now I’m trying to enlighten myself anew.

 

K: Can you say something about the symbolism of placing those elements from school into space?

Q: When I was young I was in a choir. When I would sing in such a big group, I felt that my voice was immersed – it was lost in such a big world of sound. It’s the same feeling when I look at pictures of space. The Earth is very small in space, and it feels also like my voice is very small in a big chorus.

It’s kind of tricky, especially when you are living in a country with communism. This badge that I include on the uniform, it used to have a hammer, like from the Soviet symbolism. I replaced it with two nails, because I don’t feel like a hammer – I am a nail!
The Earth in space is like the little voice in a group and the nails to the hammer. There is a great power, and sometimes it comes out of nowhere and just nails you.

 

K: The curator of the group exhibition wrote in his description that all the works speak to uncertainty about the future. Does this resonate with you?

Q: Yes. I teach at a university, so sometimes I can feel the power and feel under pressure, but I’m lucky that I also have art and can use the art to express uncertainty and have different possibilities. I can gain power from the uncertainty. I can find certainty from uncertainty.

 

Enigma is on display in the group exhibition Uncertain Traces at Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival until January 3, 2018.