《客途秋恨》（2022，香港）以對地水南音和東南亞華僑流動的歷史研究為基礎，將展覽空間轉換為電影院和製片廠的結合體：通過現場行為表演，藝術家在觀眾面前即興介入影像、雕塑、現成物和檔案資料，創造出一鏡到底的場面調度。羅玉梅稱這種方法為「電影現場」，以此將碎片化的「痕跡」連接成一個擴展性、多維度的敘事空間，以身體介入回應身體記憶，將地理、歷史、記憶、與想像交織在一起。
在《客途秋恨：第二現場》（2024, 廈門）中，羅玉梅進一步延展她的實驗，這一次更加強調某種缺席的存在。 她將發生於香港的「電影現場」表演的影像記錄轉化為一種新素材，加入鬼魂般漂浮於展廳中央的紗幕投影中，並配以由檔案圖片和《客途秋恨》（2022）的現場照片生成的AI音境。 這些影像與《客途秋恨》中原有的碎片和瞬間重新彙聚。 在這裡，磚塊堆疊之上證物缺席，空置的與不在場的都正試圖追問，我們該如何重新把握歷史。
她的方法呼應了瓦爾特·本雅明所說的“挽歌”式的歷史再造，要從破碎的過往中重新拼接意義。 通過哀悼、紀念、再解讀與再組裝，她將歷史的幽靈性帶入當下，創造出可供情感運作的動態空間，藉此召喚我們對現在和未來的重新想像。(文： 萬豐 chris Wan Feng）
Song of the Exile (2022, Hong Kong) is a pivotal experimental project, where Law reimagines and transforms the exhibition venue into a hybrid site of cinema space and film studio, based on her ongoing historical research on Dishui Nanyin (a form of traditional singing performances in Guangdong performed by blind singers) and Chinese diaspora across Southeast Asia. Through live performance, she presents an improvised mise-en-scène with images, sculptures, found objects and archival materials, a unique experience characterized by the artist as “one-take mise-en-scène”. Law coined the term “improvised cinema” to describe such experience where fragmented traces of geography, history, memories and imaginations intertwined and connected to form an expanded, multi-dimensional site of narration, with bodily intervention as a physical response to embodied memories.
In Song of the Exile: Scene II （2024, Xiamen), Law extends her experiment and furthers the emphasis of absence. She recontextualizes the video recording of Hong Kong’s “improvised cinema” as a new medium and projects them on the scrim floating ghostly at the center of the exhibition space, together with the soundscapes generated by AI based on archival images and the photo documentation of Song of the Exile (2022). The video converges with the fragments and moments from the original project, and re-presented in Xiamen. Vacant bricks, absent evidence and missing figures pose critical questions about how history can be reiterated and recontextualized in the present.
Such approach resonates with Walter Benjamin’s concept of Trauerspiel (Tragedy) in the re-enactment of history and re-appropriation of fragmented past. Through mourning, commemorating and reconfiguring, Law combines the ghostly presence of history with the contemporary moment, and creates a dynamic space where emotions profoundly shape our understanding of the present and our reimagination of the future. (English Translation by Christine Lee)
Song of the Exile, Scene II/ 客途秋恨 – 第二現場, 2022-2024
13’00”, HD Video projection on scrim/ 高清錄像投影於紗幕
Beyond the Seven Islands Sea/ 七洲洋外 1973
21X14CM. Novel (found object) 小說 (現成物)
Beyond the Seven Islands Sea, is a novel written by Chinese Indonesian writer Huang Dongping. The ship on the book cover is MS TJITJALENGKA, a passenger/cargo vessel operated by Royal Interocean Lines Limited (Hong Kong) sailing between Java and Hong Kong.
《七洲洋外》是印尼華裔作家黃東平創作的長篇小說。
小說封面的輪船是 MS TJITJALENGKA號， 一艘由香港渣華輪船公司營運，來往爪哇 – 香港的客/貨船。
The Seawater, So Blue It’s Black/ 海水藍到變黑, 2024
14CM X14 CM X14 CM
globe, copper branch, resin/ 地球儀，銅枝，樹脂
Song of the Exile, Scene II/ 客途秋恨 – 第二現場, 2022-2024
3’20”, Video play on LED TV/ 錄像, LED電視播放
Selected lyrics from “Autumnal Lament in Exile”, wood block printed Cantonese narrative singing book published by Zui Jingtang, Guangzhou.
“Autumnal Lament in Exile/ Song of the Exile” is a well-known Dishui Nanyin classical song that evoking nostalgia and feelings of separation. Dishui nanyin is a style of Cantonese narrative ballad singing.
《客途秋恨》選詞，來自廣州醉經堂出版的龍舟唱本。
《客途秋恨》是「地水南音」的名曲，寫戰亂分離之苦、懷念故人之哀。「地水南音」流行於珠江三角洲一帶，以廣府話説唱，多由盲人演唱。
Live wind map of the Seven Islands Sea by Zoom Earth, screen captured on August 15, 2024. The Seven Islands Sea has been a passage for the Chinese population migrating to Southeast Asia. The waves were said to be rough, with many coral reefs.
Zoom Earth實時風向地圖，位置七洲洋，截圖時間2024年8月15日。自古以來「七洲洋」是華人飄洋過海到東南亞的必經之地，據說風浪很大，珊瑚礁很多。
