Sunless, Shadowless
日中无影
15 gelatin silver prints, 8x10 in. each, 2026
An image is an image. An image possesses no depth, no sound, no warmth, no pain, no wound, no scar, no exhaustion, no blood or sweat, no decay. It is meant to be a portal to all the sensations, yet at the same time, it is almost destined to fail.
What we see in an image is what we instantly lose. An image is a fragment of time and movement, while labor—and the exploitation of labor—is continuous and, at times, fatal. An image of laborers can by no means convey the embodied sensation of working under detrimental, unprotected, and alienating conditions. In the case of the Chinese railroad workers who constructed the transcontinental railroad, the experience was further muted and largely erased from historical narratives.
In Sunless, Shadowless, a series of intervened images investigates the temporal dimensions of historical photographs. A railroad spike is positioned upward, opposing its designated orientation and function of anchoring, mounting, and stabilizing a railroad track. Historical photographs of anonymous Chinese laborers working on the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the United States between 1863 and 1869 are projected onto the spike as a light source. Through this process, the laborers who once worked under the sun become the sun, each casting a shadow that ruptures the image itself.
Returning projection to its optical components, I intervene in, adjust, morph, and distort the image while attempting to create a shadow that aligns, through careful speculation, with the shadows of the Chinese laborers in the historical photographs. This produces a pseudo-synchronicity between present and historical time. The resulting images are then arranged in an order resembling the direction of a running clock.
Before the invention of mechanical clocks, shadows were used to measure the passage of time. In this sense, the act of labor is closely connected to the presence of the shadow: the shadow marks passing time, leading toward the end of the day and the conclusion of labor. In these photographs, railroad workers laboring outdoors—enduring the passage of time, prolonged exposure to sunlight, and physical burdens on their bodies—are captured in total stillness.
Within this stillness, movement is suspended; physical labor is erased and alienated. Only traces of shadows remain as evidence of time passing.