Insomnia – 7:11 TRT
Insomnia: I have been suffering from insomnia for 7 years after I started to live by myself back to 2010.
Three years of complete solitude state.
Every night, staring at the ceiling, lights coming from outside that changing the shape of the space, hearing sound from the surroundings, my heart beat and pulse, thinking everything but nothing. Finely divided pieces of dialogues, faces, sounds, smells and tactile impressions appear in my mind intermittently, related and unrelated. Like being involved in a vortex, constantly rotating in the endless fragments of memories. And then I gradually lose my consciousness; fall asleep with my heavy breath.
Relevant antecedents are what make up my ideas, which are natural; not forced. Fragments, traces, blurry initial impressions from the day-to-day usually appear in my mind spontaneously, transiently or long lasting. All of the unnamed fragments became the origin and the instinct of my work. To me, it’s a way to perceive the inner heart and a projection of psychology through the process. Utilizing the framework of art practice helps me to understand my own nature.
As a person who came from the east with the experience of geographic displacement and time limitations, the past two years have been the most unique of my life. Now at a fresh turning point, the time has come to re-examine the origin of my thought, as impermanence and instability become the subtext of my work.
Analog photography occupies most of my work. After I finished combing over the minutiae of all my negatives from the past seven years, I progressively found clues from those negatives, which weren’t dated.. Although the meaning of the photograph may or may not appear immediately, it will appear in a specific state, and will present in a specific way. The “Past” not only creates the “Present”, but also obtains different meanings through the different interpretations of the present. Through searching negatives from now and the past, I look for clues from various moments and scenes, via my subjective processing in the darkroom, to create my own “Present”.
My photography relates to the connection and transformation of time, space, experience and perception. It contains past and present, death and life, pains and promises, the instant and eternal.
TAO HO is a photographer and musician original from Canton, China. After he finished his BFA degree of Traditional Chinese Painting in 2010, he switches his direction to photography. He received his MFA degree from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016. He currently living and working in Baltimore, Maryland. His work based on analogue photography and darkroom related, video, also composed music and sound as his side-project as well.
17 Days Video Series 