Memory emerged from my scenographic work for two productions of the opera The Diaries of John Rabe (2017 and 2019). This installation revisits the materials, fragments and memories produced through the process of making more than presenting the finished scenography.

​

At its centre is the Nanjing city-wall brick, a material used in both productions and a witness to the city’s long history, including the traumatic events of 1937. Made from earth and transformed by fire, the brick becomes both historical matter and a model for theatrical creation: something shaped, reconstructed and given new meaning through time.

​

The installation fractures and opens these brick-like forms, allowing photographs, production images and traces of performance to emerge from within them. It investigated what materials remember after performance disappears, and how scenography might operate as a material archive, carrying histories, labour and creative processes beyond the stage.

​

Credits: Produced by The National Centre for the Performing Arts, Storytelling and Installation by Jing Wang Thomas; Exhibition: 07/09/2019, National Performing Arts Centre​