自討苦吃 I gave myself a difficult assignment...

展覽：TOY AS MEDIA III
日期：11th Jan. – 9th Feb. 2024
作品：玩具模型說歷史

Artist 創作者: Wai-leung Lai 黎偉亮
 

[English version after Chinese text]

’Toy as Media’ 來到第三季了，我的參展作品仍是二戰軍事模型。事實上，因視力衰退老花加深，近－兩年來已沒有新的作品，心中思量不如將舊製作拍成照片加上新的註解以敷衍了事，輕鬆完成應無疑問。過程中，無意地發現了一條隱隱約約的戰爭時間線，因模型成品所限時間線當然並不完整，卻興起了說說這一段歷史的念頭。

展覽既然以玩具作主題，playful為上，亦是 Floating Projects 的一貫作風，鉅細無遺羅列歷史事件固然過份認真並不適宜，文字過多也惹人煩厭，惟有挑選那些發生於八十多年前較為關鍵的戰役與事件作記錄，即「撮寫」。翻查舊事，Google search 當然少不了，為求精確，再跟一些已讀過的參考書作核對，這一下問題來了：要撮寫必先讀「通」，’copy & paste’ 當然不成，最勞累是必須順序地翻查每一事件的內容，衡量其重要性，以作篩選並扼要描述，最後發現事件環環相扣，那有甚麼關鍵不關鍵重要不重要。結果，像回到那遙遠的求學時代，變相地進行了一次「溫書」，順道完成了一件作品，算是無心插柳吧，卻也吃了不少苦頭。

毋庸爭論，二次大戰是現代歷史中最重要的一章，承接第一次世界大戰(1914-1918)的餘波，它建立了今日全球政治格局的基礎：聯合國的組成、大國崛起、地緣政治、國際夥伴關係、帝國的衰落與殖民地的獨立與消散、毀滅性武器的高速發展和新能源的開發及資源再分配等等。當日那些獨裁者的殘酷和言而無信，大國領導人的懦弱與遲疑不決，弱小國家的首鼠兩端，抵抗者的頑強意志…多年後的今日，這個世界紛紛擾擾鬼影幢幢，其實並不意外，一切都祇是歷史長河的一個轉折，曾發生的都必然會再次發生。當日，狹隘的愛國主義與極端的民族主義，結合了人性中對復仇和權力的無窮慾望，造就了法西斯並延禍全世界，看看今天－些國家，窮兵黷武，言必「崛起」、「復興」，人民仍盲目地崇拜著國家領導人，撫今追昔，實足引以為誡。

扯遠了。無心插柳豈易成蔭，然而，若在消閒玩樂之餘，作品中的文字與圖像能令多一些人認識這段歷史，了解前因後果，除去一點對今日世局的疑惑，也算一件有意義的事情，亦算為自己的「砌」模型生涯寫下句號。

（完）

Toy as Media is in its third season, and my exhibit is still a World War II military model. In fact, due to the deterioration of my eyesight, I have no new works in the past two years. I thought that I might as well take photos of the old works and add new annotations as a way out to complete my assignment. No doubt that is an easy approach. During the process, I accidentally discovered a vague timeline of the war. Of course, the timeline was bound to be incomplete when one simply relies on miniature models, but I thought I could grab the opportunity to talk about this period of history.

Since the theme of the exhibition is toys, playfulness is the top priority, which is also the consistent style of Floating Projects. In such a context, listing historical events in detail could be overly serious or even inappropriate; at least I wanted to avoid being wordy. My final resort, then, was to confine myself to those key battles and incidents about eighty-something years ago – to present such records along a cursory time line. Google search is of course indispensable when looking up old things. To be more precise, I cross-checked my findings with some reference books I have read. The question then arises: effective copy-and-paste presumes one has already got thorough understanding of a certain historical moment. Anyway, copy-and-paste is not good enough. I must study individual incidents in greater details, before selecting the descriptions that could amount to shedding light on their interlocking relations. This is more than the usual approach of asserting individual events’ significance. I felt I was returning to those days as a history student. Perhaps that is why my creative process matters – a self-invitation to re-encounter history and complete an art work as a side-product. The process is exhausting, and yet I completed something to show.

There is no argument that the Second World War is the most important chapter in modern history. It inherited the aftermath of the First World War (1914-1918) and established the foundation of today’s global political landscape: the formation of the United Nations, the rise of great powers, geopolitics, International partnerships, the decline of empires and the independence and dissolution of colonies, the rapid development of destructive weapons and the development of new energy sources and resource redistribution, etc. The cruelty and dishonesty of those dictators back then, the cowardice and indecisiveness of the leaders of big countries, the turmoil of small and weak countries, the tenacious will of the resisters... Today, many years later, the world is still full of chaos and there is nothing surprising. Many facts of current society are just new turning points in the long history, and what happened before will inevitably happen again. At that time, narrow patriotism and extreme nationalism, combined with the endless desire for revenge and power in human nature, created fascism and brought disaster to the whole world. Look around today, what happened back then continues: resorting to militarization in the name of rejuvenation and recovering lost power. And people still blindly worship their national leaders. In retrospect, what happened back then was already a clear warning.

Have I gone too far and digressed too much? My unintended contemplation perhaps will not amount to much fruitful discovery. However, if, in addition to leisure and fun, the words and images in my work may cause some kind of an imaginative inkling or the curiosity for better historical understanding, I would truly feel rested. Perhaps “building” models is also a way to “build” causal relations in order to question or cast doubt on them. Would this be a meaningful full-stop to my hobby of miniature model building?

(English translation by Linda C.H. LAI)