Traces

Wang Bing filmed Traces in 2005 during the search for locations for his film The Ditch in former labour camps in the Gobi Desert where thousand of political prisoners had died of hunger For the first time he used 35mm black and white film a gift from artist Yang Fudong to capture this landscape condemned to disappear With no sound the film records the final barely visible traces of human lives bones clothing footsteps Drawing on experimental documentary this short video echoes other subjects dear to Wang Bing the story of the campaign against the rightist elements in the early 1950s and the reeducation and hard labour camps established before the Cultural Revolution This film which was not edited until 2014 was first presented at the Centre Pompidou the same year and then again at the Galerie Chantal Crousel in 2018