Rethinking/Relinking Colonial Ruptures: On Recent Works by Musquiqui Chihying and Hao Jingban

Abstract

Introduction: Ruptures in Colonial Histories This article analyses recent essay films directed by Musquiqui Chihying and Hao Jingban, which deploy colonial archives and collaboration in the research process. These essay films offer alternative perspectives to reveal previously underexplored narratives––which in this article I call ‘ruptures’. In literatures on postcolonial conditions, the rupture describes the borders separating cultures as a result of colonisation. Colonial ruptures thus cast previous connections among the non-Western world (e.g. Asia–Africa and other sites of exploitation and extraction) into oblivion. The frictions and fissures are not merely discussed in a temporal sense of colonial–postcolonial division here. Such missing links result in the binary system of coloniser/colonised and North/South. These barriers were the architecture of colonial political economic systems, the deprivation and suppression of indigenous cultures, and displacement and disconnections from natural habitats. These ruptures must be fixed and relinked in decolonial discourses. Through examining undercurrents within colonial histories, I will investigate how creative research seeks to bridge such ruptures. My aim is to reveal how the narrative complicates the gaze between self and other, without romanticising or victimising the other. Towards this end, I first summarise the current status of postcolonial discourses in the Chinese-speaking world, the critique of essentialism, and the Deleuzian notion of aion (holes and ruptures) as reinterpreted and enriched by curator and theorist Huang Chien-Hung. The second section analyses several moving image works that explore China’s relationships with Africa and Japan under colonialism. Essay film emerged as a major medium for recording artist-led research on global conflicts due to its documentary nature and adaptability to global exhibition formats. The flexibility of style and approaches accommodates various forms of storytelling and is often used to encourage the participation of different