European details

Author: Susu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-10-01
Features: Europe is familiar in our hearts, yet still strange in our eyes. This strangeness is both blood-related and cultural, as well as geographical and historical. During those more than 20 days, the author stood before the unfamiliar, often staring blankly before gradually finding the familiar. She kepting and identifying, seeing both Europe and herself. In the summer of 2002, I traveled around Europe. When I went, I didn’t plan to write anything substantial, because large-scale works had already been written by many people. I came to Europe to touch the scenes or objects I had once touched in books. Before this, Europe had always been preserved in my reading, as a novel from the 18th or 19th century, giving me a faint, elusive impression—one that was present when I thought of it and absent when I didn’t. On this trip to Europe, I felt as if I were revisiting the details I had seen in novels, reliving a long-forgotten dream from my youth or early adulthood. I realized that Europe, though familiar in my heart, remained strange in my eyes. This strangeness was both blood-related and cultural, as well as geographical and historical. During those more than 20 days, I stood before the unfamiliar, often staring blankly before gradually finding the familiar. I kepting and identifying, seeing both Europe and myself. I am not a professional photographer, not even an amateur. Yet, for the time, I wanted to record what I saw in a photographic and textual form. The photos provide a scene where I once stopped or walked. In this small book, they will unfold in the order of time and journey, narrated in a nominal style.