Halfway 2026
publication collaboration with Yixin Yang
Coptic Stitch, Spineless, screenprint
Halfway is a field diary of a residency in Wuli Village, along the Nu River.
Following an experience of walking across the river at night, the diary gathers fragmented accounts of ghost stories, intertwined folk beliefs, encounters and coincidences, as well as a funeral that took place unexpectedly. As the journey unfolded, the project’s original artistic ambitions gradually gave way to something else.
“Hāfúwèi （halfway）” was a word we heard from “Aiyi,” she was travelling alone. She told us about a bathing place deep in the mountains, a little fantasy land tucked away from the world. We never quite figured out where it was. All we had was the sound of the word, and the place we imagined from it. “Halfway” was where we found ourselves: holding torches in the dark, trying to give shape to the unseen.
We came to realise that there were things language could never fully hold. We found ourselves confronting the blurred boundaries between observation, intervention, and friendship. Through encounters and conversations with local people, young people work at the hotel there, and passing travellers, different imaginings of elsewhere and “pastoral idylls” emerged, alongside the complex tensions between tourism and ecology.
We found these threads at a market in Bingzhongluo, they are used for weaving there, we used them to stitch this book.
