Transcend the Past

No matter how much we try to leave the past behind, it lingers, haunting us like a ghost. This idea brought to mind archivist’s lung, a condition librarians develop from inhaling dust in archives—a physical manifestation of being possessed by history. Dust becomes a central metaphor: the past as something dispersed yet suffocating, settling invisibly into the body and shaping how we breathe, think, and exist.

The project is rooted in interviews with my grandparents about their experiences during the Cultural Revolution. Even decades later, the fear and anger they endured have not faded. My grandmother described how repetitive slogans heard during the pandemic triggered memories of the Cultural Revolution—an unspeakable act from collective memory can transform into a structure that overwhelms individuality and regulates how a body is allowed to exist. My grandfather then shared the story of his teacher, who had been labeled “Cow Demons and Snake Spirit（牛鬼蛇神）,” a term used to humiliate literati. The teacher later committed suicide by jumping off the school building.

What lingered after these interviews was a presence that continues long after its visible form has faded. Hauntology offered a way to approach this condition: the past does not remain behind us; it returns as atmosphere, shaping perception without needing to be named. The Cultural Revolution appears here not as a narrative to be retold, but as a haunting force that settles quietly into everyday life, resurfacing through memory, gesture, and silence.

Within this framework, archivist’s lung becomes an embodied metaphor—the body inhales the residue of history like dust suspended in the air. Rather than preserving clarity, this dust thickens the atmosphere, allowing the past to linger as a condition rather than an image. From this perspective emerges the gesture of ascending the dust. Instead of confronting history through representation, the work imagines a moment where the haze can be faced and released—not erased, but allowed to rise and disperse. Sublimation becomes an act of letting go: the transformation of historical residue into movement, where memory shifts from suffocating weight toward circulation and new life.