Home

Artists: Lily & Honglei
Animation Running Time: 3 minute
Medium: digital animation and sound, Chinese cut-paper motifs
Completion Year and Location: 2010, New York City

Artist Statement

Home is an emotional depiction of transformation of lives.

The video begins with lively memory of our childhood. At that time, around Chinese New Year, family members would decorate their rooms with handmade cut-paper pieces in bright red, which seemed bring warmth to home in the harshest winter days in Beijing. “Magpies and Plume Blossoms” is one of the most typical motifs found on windows. The small building in Hutong (courtyard) style, Spring Festival pictures with painted door-gods, exquisite lantern, firecrackers, giggling chickens, and wind wheels - all of these recall happiness of simple live in the past. …The world changes so fast. Things we cherish only remain in memory. In the reality, the entire neighborhood of our home was demolished prior to Beijing Olympic Game. We captured the bleak landscape outside our window with a camera. It was another day around Chinese New Year.

In China’s, recently, demolishing residential areas and relocating millions of people become everyday practices for economic development that lead to countless family tragedies. Through telling our personal experiences, Home, the short animated film composed with traditional Chinese cut-paper images, indicates the situation that both people’s property and feelings have been trampled as a result of the social transformation inducing bottomless desire for profit.

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