Where Time Has Yielded

“Where Time Has Yielded” points to the poetic traces time leaves on the geography of mountains and rivers. It may be the humblest monument in the universe, leaving behind the whisper, “I was once accepted here.” It liberates “traces” from a destructive context and redefines them as imprints of dialogue – the most fitting evidence of intimacy left behind after a long, mutually compromising embrace between the hard dimensions of time and space and the softness of life. It allows humanity to feel that its tiny existence is not a thorn scratching the world, but rather a properly weighted, gently responded-to presence as it sinks into the sea of time.

Zhang Hua, through repeated hammering of copper, creates a “pine forest” that coexists with him. As a valley resident who grew up beside an ancient courier road, the imprints of his life, together with the pine forest vegetation, slowly and tenaciously take root deeper into the mountains.