The work begins from the persistence of vanished creatures in the imagination. Borrowing a passage from Calvino’s The Dinosaurs, it asks why the more dinosaurs disappear from the world, the more they extend their dominion inside the thoughts of the survivors.
Made with Zirui Chen, the double-channel video configures realism through 3D modeling, CGI, AI-generated images, found footage, and essay-film methods. Between scientific hypothesis, entertainment spectacle, and technical image-making, the work examines who has the power to make an unbelievable object look plausible, and who is granted the authority to dream it into a shared reality.
Process notes
The work dossier opens with Calvino’s The Dinosaurs: the more completely dinosaurs disappear, the further their dominion extends inside the thoughts of the survivors. This becomes a conceptual path for the double-channel video, where AI generation, 3D animation and found footage examine how something absent or unimaginable can keep occupying thought, language and image. The screening and exhibition materials keep this logic visible rather than treating the video as a closed file: subtitle stills, synthetic dinosaurs, archive fragments and the title system sit beside installation views from Drawer Inside the Bar Lines at Power Station of Art, where the double-channel image, suspended monitor, drawers, handwritten pages and tabletop projections turn the work into a small archaeology of mediated imagination.
Festivals / screenings
- 2024, Blue Planet Science Fiction Festival, Nanjing, China — Jury special mention
- 2024, South Taiwan Film Festival, Tainan, Taiwan
- 2024, Kasseler Dokfest, Kassel, Germany
- 2024, Xi Ying Light Your Fire Young Film Festival, Xi'an, China
- 2024, Chinese Film Festival Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
- 2024, 2023 Chinese Documentary Annual Concern Special Screening & Forum, LUXELAKES ART EXPO CENTER, Chengdu, China — Special screening
- 2023, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Beijing, China — Art Exploration Award
Exhibitions
- 2026, Earthed: Reconnecting with the Ground, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
- 2025, Hello Tomato, Better Tomorrow!, ICAT Institute for Contemporary Art & Transfer at HFBK Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
- 2025, TECH DESTINATION, Center for the Promotion of Science, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia
- 2025, NTAa, the International New Technological Art Exhibition and Awards, Foundation Liedts-Meesen, Ghent, Belgium
- 2024-2025, Place and Narration: The First Annual Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Photography and Video Arts, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China
- 2024, Drawer Inside the Bar Lines, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China
- 2024, Nanjing Contemporary Animation Art Documentation Exhibition, Nanjing, China
- 2024, Nanjing Art Fair International, Qimu Space, Nanjing, China
- 2023, Katabasis, Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival, Xiamen, China
Links / references
- BISFF official selection: How to Imagine the Unimaginable Official Beijing International Short Film Festival work page.
- BISFF 2023 Chinese Competition Award BISFF award page for the Art Exploration Award.
- BISFF live recording: imagining reality BISFF discussion record on fiction, realism and technical images.
- South Taiwan Film Festival: How to Imagine the Unimaginable Official South Taiwan Film Festival programme page.
- CIFRA artwork page CIFRA's online artwork record for the film.
- NTAa / Zebra Art work record Work record from the NTAa exhibition and awards platform.
- Power Station of Art: Emerging Curators Project 2024 Power Station of Art exhibition page for Drawer Inside the Bar Lines.
- UBPA review: backstage and drawers Commentary on the exhibition layout, backstage structure and drawer mechanism.
- Blue Planet Science Fiction Film Week award report Public report carrying the Blue Planet jury special mention record.