Photo- Sound Artist Book: Today, Tomorrow, and the Tales from the Wind
Tianjun Li (Timjune)
2024
Photographic and sound artist Tianjun Li's long-term project Today, Tomorrow, and the Tales from the Wind explores his migration journey, sense of home, and human-nature coexistence through overlapping the photographs taken in China, Finland, and Iceland, to reimagine a fragile utopian world.
The artist book also serves as a sound art album. In addition to the photo book, Li creates a paper vinyl containing an NFC tag that links to the sound art album of the project on streaming platforms.
Artist Statement about the Project
This project, which began in 2023, represents my ongoing interdisplinary exploration of photograph and sound. It includes a photography series, a sound art album, video works, and live performances. Beyond exhibitions, the project has been presented as visual concerts and in the form of an artist book and record. It started from my reflections on the deforestation happening both in my homeland and Finland, as well as an exploration of the interconnectedness between humans and nature. Over time, it expanded into a broader contemplation of the search for home, deeply influenced by my experiences of living in Finland and Iceland after leaving my home country.
In the photography series, I treat images as signals, sent back and forth between my current home and the place I left behind. I recompose photographs taken in my homeland with those captured during my stays in Finland and Iceland, re-composing them together in a way that reimagines a utopian world of dreams, hope, and human nature co-existence. Through double exposure, I merge the light of my hometown’s lighthouse with Iceland’s canyons; the city lights of my homeland encircle a boy standing in a Finnish forest; trees from my homeland are transplanted into Icelandic landscapes, barren due to deforestation and climate change, and other various photographic elements that are connected in hidden but delicate manners. The documentary nature of the images transforms into a space for imagined realities.
In this project, I also began exploring sound and the human voice. As a synesthete, I naturally see images in sound. The project culminated in a music album that serves as a soundtrack to the photography series. Using my own vocal experiments, field recordings from Iceland and Finland, as well as recordings from my homeland, I reassembled these elements to create a wordless soundscape that reflects themes of migration, self-exploration, and coexisting with nature, as well as the search for the meaning of home. When we return to being creatures—just humans—the wordless voice carries the power of speech.