Advisor/tutor: Anselm Franke

Arnhem, August 2019

Abstract

This thesis is moving back and forth from empirical memories (an active-passive representation) to historiographical records (the interpretation of the conceived-lived), regurgitating reminiscence to shuffle, scrape and shift a ventilation duct of the postponed memory which was enclosed and pumped into an experiential “vacuum zone.” In doing so, through an astigmatic lens full of confusion to revisit and sense the social practice in southwest China and its transition from the frontier of empire in pre-modern time to a pilot zone for investment in the late capitalism, an imagined identical past, which reduces the trivialities and complexities of social life and flattens the conflicts and struggles, will be unpacked and undone from within.