Tao Te Ching Copybook

2024, 16mm clear film, 1 min loop

In this 16mm film experiment, I hand-transferred text from Zhao Mengfu’s calligraphy of the Tao Te Ching onto clear 16mm film, a text I practiced throughout childhood and memorized in middle school. Recurring characters such as “Heaven” (天), “Man” (人), “Virtue” (德), “Tao” (道), “Good” (善), “Country” (國), and “Love” (愛) are circled in red ink and overwritten.

Borrowing the visual language of a teacher’s red annotations, the work draws on the discipline of copying and memorization shaped in childhood. Transferred onto film, the text shifts from a classical lesson into a personal image of memory, authority, and personal re-reading.