南方螺
South Shells
South Shells
螺书
展开的螺书
盐田与珠碧江和大海的位置关系地图我对南方的想象也许来自那些从远地方运来的芒果和荔枝的香甜，也许来自马孔多的暴雨，也许来自西贡的大河，我已经不在乎地图上的南方到底在哪里，好像那些甜糯的，潮湿的，炎热的，迷幻的，遥远却又不那么遥不可及的，都变成了一片迷濛的南方。这种南，是相对于我所在的位置而言的：成都，比成都更南的香港，比成都更北的伦敦。那是我这些年的移动轨迹。于是那些不同的地方，有时候变成了我的南方，有时候变成了我的北方。而海南，即便在这样的轨迹的参照下，也总是南方。
往南走和往北走，带给我的心理体验是很不一样的。这一点我还没有完全明白。根据阴阳五行，方位对于每个人来说都很重要，每个人都有适合自己的方位，小到房间里的布局，大到发展事业的城市，都有很多讲究。也许是因为对于那片神秘的南方的想象，大学我选择了去到香港，却带给了我一段不那么快乐的回忆。南方在神秘之外也显得有点恐怖了，像是一片瘴气弥漫的沼泽。
现在我在海南岛西面的儋州老市村，与越南隔海相望，到河内的直线距离比到广州还要近。我在这里已经待了一个月左右，做一个艺术驻地。说是艺术驻地，其实这里也没有一个艺术机构，甚至在我之前也没有艺术家来这里做过驻地。去年冬天，我在北伦敦的小房子里遇到了来自海南岛的女孩丘，跟她聊起我在老家用奶奶田里的土做的陶器，她很感动，便邀请我来老市村，她做社区经理的村子，来这里做一些和海盐有关的创作。
老市村北面有一片盐田。说是海盐，其实是珠碧江这条咸淡水河的盐。涨潮的时候，咸咸的潮汐从海里涌入河道，再流入盐田的水道里，最后漫到沙地上，盐分渗流在沙子里。勤劳的盐工把沙子搬运到滤池，用留在水塘里的潮水过滤出浓浓的卤水，再把卤水搬运到晒盐的格子里，阳光和风便会让卤水出盐，析出晶莹洁白的盐粒。
村里有上百棵一两百年的酸豆树。这些是老市的祖先们种下的。参天的酸豆树给村庄带来阴凉，为村庄抵挡台风，给松鼠、鸟儿、蚂蚁、人们带来又酸又甜的酸豆角。它们是祖先们留给后代的礼物。在老市村，每一户人家的堂屋里都供奉着祖先的牌位，摆着水果，大米，盐巴，祖先好像也并未走远，他们种的酸豆树也还荫蔽着村庄。
我对搬运来盐分的潮汐以及酸豆树很感兴趣。最开始，我想做一些尺幅很大的作品。我想把用酸豆籽染过色的大大的画布铺在盐田的沙地上，或是围在火山石砌成的墙边，让潮汐在上面留下冲刷的痕迹。很快，我发现这个方案只能停滞：连续很多天盐田都没有放水进来。后来盐田终于开始放水了，我又想了一个替代性的方案，直接把用酸豆籽墨水和贝壳粉画好的布埋在潮水退去后湿湿的沙地里，让沙子里的湿润去侵蚀那些颜色。我把埋了一天的布挖出来，却没有很明显的痕迹。
我也尝试了蓝晒，在大大的纸和布上涂满蓝晒液，放在酸豆树斑驳的影子里面。我也尝试在布上画画，用酸豆籽和铁泡的墨水，用贝壳粉，也没有得到很有意思的结果。我用盐水浸泡在纸上用酸豆墨和铁水画的画，想让盐分结晶在画上。但是效果也不是很明显。我还想把两千颗酸豆籽串成一串串的，挂在酸豆树上。我串了两串，就丧失了兴趣和耐心。
驻地的成果是希望做出一个“树美术馆”，在五一的时候在当地酸豆节呈现。想到酸豆树的高大，我似乎总想做出一些很大的作品，似乎那样才能和环境的尺度相符，才能是合格的面对公众的艺术。可是我的尝试都失败了。
最后“树美术馆”会呈现怎样的作品呢？其实是小小的螺书，以及在螺壳里发芽的酸豆籽。
我在盐田上散步，和偶遇的老盐工聊天，了解到盐田的一些往事以及过去村民和盐有关的生计情况：盐田曾经给这个几乎没有耕地的村庄带来生计和殷实，勤劳的盐丁们用海盐换来稻谷、鸡，以及其他农产品，一担海盐可以换一担稻谷，若是跟黎族人换，一担海盐还可以换五担稻谷。我参与和村长老妈以及二姨的在盐田上的劳动，我发现她们会在水塘里抓螺，用石头砸开螺壳，然后用螺肉在卤水里的沉浮状况来判断卤水是否达到了可以一天就出盐的浓度。
有一天傍晚，我在盐田的河道岸上散步。那是那天潮水水位最高的时候，河道里满满地流淌着潮水，潮水慢慢地弥漫到盐田里，先是注满了出水口的小池塘，然后又漫出来，浸漫到沙地上。招潮蟹急匆匆地梭走，肉马齿苋在水里浮动。我感觉整个盐田都在歌唱，潮水让盐田活了过来。深蓝色的天空中的最后一缕晚霞的光辉倒映在如镜的湖泊般的水面上，很美丽。
那天过后，我开始用珠碧江的螺壳和纸做书，书的每一页都是一张小画，跟螺壳一样小，是用酸豆籽墨水和铁水画成的。这让我对事物的大小有了新的感知。螺壳的大小不是任意的。红树蚬可能需要一到五年才能长到五厘米的直径，而扁平钳蛤的直径要长到五厘米也需要二至四年的时间。它们的生长速度又受到自然环境的很多影响，比如气候，温度，污染程度。在螺壳的方寸间，有一整个生命的进程。对于一幅画来说，五厘米算是非常非常小了，而对于螺来说，它却足够大。
这次我的创作大概就是这样一个过程吧。这是一个由大到小，由想象到观察，由美术馆的尺度到螺的尺度的一个过程。从盐出发，我看到了珠碧江的潮汐，看到了盐田背后整个珠碧江的生态，最后落脚到珠碧江的螺，看到了螺壳里小小的空间的时间尺度和空间的广阔性。
昨晚我和丘丘聊了一下我在老市村的这段时间的感受。我觉得我的这个驻地的过程让我对艺术的理解变得跟之前不一样了。我在伦敦上过一整年观察式绘画的课程。我现在慢慢体会到，观察不只是用眼睛去看一个对象的形态，观察可以是多维度的，多感官的。面对具体的地方，人，生活，艺术的力量就在于对这种具体性的感知。在来老市村之前，我的那些设想都是来自我的想象以及我已有的认知。而当我真正到了这里，真正去观察和感受这个地方的时候，我从周围的环境里学到了很多东西，周围的环境参与了我的创作的过程。我的创作从大的画布到小小的螺壳，在这个过程里我经历了一次对固有认知的重构，我从环境里获得的信息在告诉我这个创作需要走向哪里，我该做什么。这好像是一次潮水上的漂流，当我顺着水的流淌，去感受遇到的所有事情，我漂到了一个我从未到达过的地方。
My imagination of the South may come from the sweetness of mangoes and lychees transported from distant lands, from the torrential rains of Macondo, or from the great river of Saigon. I no longer care where the South actually lies on the map—it seems all that is sticky-sweet, humid, sweltering, hallucinatory, distant yet not entirely out of reach has blurred into a single, misty South. This "south" is relative to where I stand: Chengdu, Hong Kong (further south than Chengdu), London (further north). These traces of movement over the years mean these places sometimes become my South, sometimes my North. But Hainan, even within this frame of reference, remains always the South.
Moving south and moving north give me entirely different psychological experiences—something I still don't fully understand. According to the principles of Yin and Yang and the Five Elements, direction holds deep significance for every individual. There are auspicious and inauspicious orientations, from the layout of a room to the choice of city for career development. Perhaps it was this mystique of the South that led me to choose Hong Kong for university, only to leave me with unhappy memories. Beyond its mystery, the South took on a tinge of terror, like a swamp shrouded in miasma.
Now I'm in Laoshi Village, Danzhou, on the western edge of Hainan Island, facing Vietnam across the sea. The straight-line distance to Hanoi is shorter than to Guangzhou. I've been here about a month for an art residency—though "residency" might be an overstatement, as there's no art institution here, and no artist has ever done a residency in this village before me. Last winter, in a small house in North London, I met Qiu, a girl from Hainan. When I told her about the pottery I made with soil from my grandmother's fields, she was moved and invited me to Laoshi Village, where she works as a community manager, to create something related to sea salt.
North of the village lies a salt field. Though called "sea salt," it's actually harvested from the brackish waters of the Zhubi River. At high tide, salty seawater surges into the river channel, flows into the salt field's waterways, and seeps into the sand. The diligent salt workers carry the sand to filtration pools, using the remaining tidal water to extract concentrated brine. The brine is then transported to salt pans, where sunlight and wind coax out glistening white salt crystals.
The village is home to over a hundred tamarind trees, some one or two hundred years old, planted by Laoshi's ancestors. These towering trees shade the village, shield it from typhoons, and offer their tart-sweet pods to squirrels, birds, ants, and people alike. They are gifts from the ancestors to their descendants. In every household's central hall, ancestral tablets are displayed, adorned with offerings of fruit, rice, and salt. The ancestors feel ever-present—their tamarind trees still shelter the village.
I was fascinated by the tide that carried the salt and by the tamarind trees. At first, I envisioned large-scale works: spreading huge canvases dyed with tamarind seed pigment across the salt field's sandy ground, or draping them along volcanic stone walls, letting the tides leave their marks. But this plan quickly stalled—for days, no water flowed into the salt field. When the water finally returned, I tried burying cloth painted with tamarind ink and crushed shell powder in the damp sand left by the receding tide, letting the moisture erode the colors. After a day, I dug it up—only to find barely any trace.
I experimented with cyanotypes, coating large sheets of paper and fabric with photosensitive solution and placing them under the dappled shadows of the tamarind trees. I painted on cloth with tamarind ink and iron-infused water mixed with shell powder, but nothing particularly interesting emerged. I soaked paper painted with tamarind ink and iron solution in brine, hoping salt crystals would form on the surface. The effect was barely noticeable. I even considered stringing two thousand tamarind seeds into garlands to hang from the trees. After two strands, I lost interest and patience.
The residency was supposed to culminate in a "Tree Museum" for the local May Day Tamarind Festival. Faced with the grandeur of the trees, I felt compelled to create something equally monumental, as if only large-scale works could match the environment's scale and qualify as "public art." Yet all my attempts failed.
So what, in the end, would the "Tree Museum" display?
Just tiny shell books, and tamarind seeds sprouting inside shells.
Wandering the salt fields, chatting with elderly salt workers, I learned about their salt-dependent livelihoods: how these fields once brought prosperity to a village with little arable land, how diligent workers traded sea salt for rice and chickens—one load of salt for one load of rice, or five loads when trading with the Li people. Joining the village chief's mother and aunt in their labor, I watched as they cracked open river snail shells with stones, using the buoyancy of the flesh in brine to test its salt concentration.
One evening at high tide, I walked along the riverbank. The channel brimmed with seawater, slowly spilling into the salt field, first filling the outlet pond, then overflowing onto the sand. Fiddler crabs scuttled away; purslane floated on the water. The entire salt field seemed to sing—the tide brought it to life. The last glow of sunset reflected on the mirror-like surface, beautiful.
After that day, I began making books from Zhubi River snail shells and paper. Each page was a small painting, no larger than a shell, rendered in tamarind ink and iron solution. This gave me a new perspective on scale. A shell's size isn't arbitrary: A mangrove clam may take one to five years to reach five centimeters in diameter, while a leaf oyster requires two to four years—their growth shaped by climate, temperature, pollution. Within a shell's tiny space lies an entire life's journey. Five centimeters is minuscule for a painting, but for a mollusk, it's monumental.
This, more or less, was my creative process: a shift from large to small, from imagination to observation, from museum scale to shell scale. Starting from salt, I saw the Zhubi River's tides, then the entire ecosystem behind the salt fields, finally arriving at the river's shells—their compact spaces holding the vastness of time.
Last night, I talked with Qiu about my time in Laoshi Village. This residency has changed my understanding of art. In London, I took a year-long course on observational drawing. Now I realize observation isn't just visually recording forms—it can be multidimensional, multisensory. Faced with a specific place, its people, and their lives, art's power lies in perceiving this particularity. Before coming here, my ideas sprang from imagination and prior knowledge. But being here, truly observing and feeling this place, taught me so much. The environment became part of my creative process. My work shrank from vast canvases to tiny shells, and in that shift, my preconceptions were dismantled. The surroundings guided the work, showing me where it needed to go. It was like drifting on the tide—letting the current carry me, feeling everything along the way, until I reached somewhere entirely new.