Lifta, 15/05/2006 (Jewish Boy)
《利夫塔》（犹太男孩）
Digital print on paper
数码印刷
Courtesy of the aerusalem, 24/04/2006 (Memorial Day)
《耶路撒冷》（纪念日）
Digital print on paper
数码印刷
Courtesy of the artist
作品由艺术家提供

The two images taken by Lidwien van de Ven in the Middle East exemplify how the artist works at the limits of visibility. The captions of both photographs point to facts that cannot be seen. Lifta is the name of an ancient Palestinian village, whose inhabitants were driven out in 1948, but which was not re-settled and remains in ruins. The name is no longer in use. The Memorial Day alluded to in the next photo is the Genocide Memorial Day for the Armenian Genocide of 1915, which falls on April 24th every year. But in 2006 this day coincided with another Memorial Day: the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah in Hebrew), which is an Israeli national day to commemorate the six million Jews murdered in World War II that falls on the 27 Nisan between April and May. That same day, there was also a triple bomb attack in the Egyptian resort town of Dahab, and another memorial may be erected in the memory of the victims. The wall in the image, showing graffiti being painted away, was photographed in the Old City of Jerusalem. The only visible word is “nation,” but exactly which nation is being called up remains ambiguous. [note to SU WEI: in this last sentence, can “which nation” be translated as He Guo to echo the exhibition title?]
这两幅Lidwien van de Ven在中东拍摄的照片告诉了我们艺术家的视觉工作方法。两张照片的说明文字指出了从图像中无法看到的层面。利夫塔是巴勒斯坦一座古镇的名字，那里的居民1948年的时候被赶了出来，但镇子本身后来却没有得到修复，至今仍是一片废墟。这个镇名早已很久没有被人用过。第二幅图片《难忘的一天》指的是为了哀悼亚美尼亚1915年发生的种族灭绝事件设立的种族灭绝纪念日，每年4月24日举行。但在2006年，这个纪念日与另一个发生了重合：大屠杀和英勇事迹纪念日（即希伯来语中的Yom Ha Shoah）——这是以色列人的国庆节，根据犹太尼散历法，这一天应该是在犹太月四月和五月间的27日，以纪念二战中被屠杀的六百万犹太人。而在历史上的同一天还有另一事件发生，即埃及度假胜地达哈布发生的三次炸弹袭击，原则上应该还有另一个纪念日存在，以纪念那些在炸弹袭击中遇难的人们。照片中的墙上画满了涂鸦，是在耶路撒冷的老城拍摄的。墙上唯一可以看到的词是“国家”(nation)，但到底这里所指的是“何国”，我们无法判断。

Lidwien van de Ven (b.1963) is a Dutch artist living and working between Rotterdam and Berlin. Her photo-based work has been exhibited internationally, including Be(coming) Dutch at the Van Abbe Museum in 2008, documeta 12 (2007), the 2006 Sydney Biennale, and Be What You Want But Stay Where You Are at Witte de With (2005). Of course, Van de Ven rarely “stays where she is,” as her work often involves moving abroad to areas which journalists often “cover.” But unlike journalistic photography, her work involves the production of images that signal their status as fragments of the visible truth.
荷兰艺术家Lidwien van de Ven（1963年生）生活工作于鹿特丹和柏林。她的作品以照片为主，参与了国际上的很多展览，包括Van Abbe博物馆2008年举办的展览< Be(coming) Dutch >、第十二届卡塞尔文献展（2007年）、2006年悉尼双年展以及Witte de With当代艺术中心2005年举办的展览《原地踏步做自己》(Be What You Want But Stay Where You)。当然，Van de Ven很少“原地踏步”，她的作品经常牵涉到记者们经常“涉足”的外国地域。但与新闻摄影不同的是，她的作品涉及了图片生产，描述了可见真理的碎片状态