Curator: Chen Guangjun

To the young generation of artists like Yu Xiao, Liu Xiaofang, and Song Shimin who have received orthodox art education, memories of childhood is a very important accumulation of raw materials for their art creation. Childhood seems to be an inexhaustible topic. The three young artists give different interpretations to the same period of childhood Playground, lawn, teddy bears...those past childish feelings are reproduced by digital techniques, showing that they are indeed nostalgia-provoking fretless childhoods that are worth longing for, childhoods full of care and fun, childhoods of the artists themselves. Because of the artists' longing of going back to the past, images' traditional meaning of instance is overthrown with the artists presenting what they are like in their childhoods. The contrast between the half-reality-half-illusion fretless childhood and the pressure from the society forces the artist to utter the cry "I don't want to grow up!" But the childhood is gone. Are all the glories reproduced really imaginations of the childhood or are they just pure decoration of memories? Anyway, the sweetness of memories stays. Even though they are not at the real spot, imagination has broken the harness and flies freely in a child's thinking. This mirage in head is endowed with conditions for growth by digital images. The Bird Nest and the soaring rocket-retrospection of childhood in the idle fantasy has lost its original meaning and become absurd. No joy or sadness or panic. All these feelings have disappeared and dissolved in peace and tranquility. Maybe this peace and tranquility is just the mirage lost between childhood and adulthood.

How far away is reality and dream? I have not had dreams for many years since I grew up. Childhood dream is full of regret and loneliness, like an angel whose wings are broken. The artist grabs the mood full of contradiction and suspect, and hides them in a lost expression. There is always huge diversity between beautiful dreams and the reality. Expected success and failure have lost their original meanings in transformation. Cruel as it is, this may be just reality. Perhaps defects are really part of beauty.

From the very beginning, photography has been deeply involved in the progress of technology. Digital technique largely enriched the measures of photography, enabling us to reinterpret the art of photography from a brand new angle. Can the lost childhood be retrieved? The three young artists have gained their own answers through the images reproduced by modern digital photography techniques. The sincerest feelings of the artists endow the works with vigor. Lingering upgrades in memory, and then moves on.