episode #8 with Lei Lei

The guest of this episode of HOBO is Lei Lei, an experimental animation artist with his hands on video arts, painting, installation, music and VJ performance. His new project, “That Day, on the River”, newspaper clippings, historical photographs and a film about a female basketball player serve as the source material for an exploration of his father’s childhood in provincial China. The film is held together by a conversation between he and his father originally recorded during the production of his animated feature, Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish. During the trip, his father talked with him about his childhood memories in the Fifties and things he wasn’t good at. Through his art, Lei Lei mixes individual and collective memory: the artist’s nostalgia serves as the starting point of a quest for truth regarding history, family, and personal identity. Which is more significant nowadays, the photograph as work of art or as archival image? Which is more important, the picture or the process of image production; the fact that an image is viewed or the context in which it is viewed? It is also a reflection on the image and the status of the author.