This project focuses on the place I am studying at the moment, Middlesbrough, which is located in a traditional industrial area in the northeast of the UK. I had just arrived in the UK from China in February 2022, when China was still under strict epidemic control, and yet Middlesbrough presented itself as if it didn’t undergo an epidemic. I was puzzled by the calmness, which is different from what I had in mind when the epidemic was raging and the international situation was in turmoil, and from what I had seen in the news media where it is reported that "we could be caught in the vortex of disaster at any time".
I visited campuses, restaurants, resorts, community centers, train station plazas, parks, beaches, and other places. People no longer seemed to be the subject of the environment. "flowers" were the most common element, as if they were some kind of "comforting memorial"; seagulls flying low overhead in the streets; horses dazzled by the sunlight; lost magazines and dropped sandwiches seemed to reveal the serenity. I imagine this place as Truman's world, trying to explore this community space with a slightly restrained and mysterious perspective, capturing the confusion and bewilderment of the present: what are we experiencing?
