Artist's Book Ground Sea 地浪

Kanthy Peng’s debut artist book, Ground Sea,
weaves a visual narrative exploring depres-
sion, memory, and loss through 73 photo-
graphs.
In Ground Sea, Peng re-orchestrates photo-
graphs spanning over a decade and multiple
projects into a new diptych-structured work.
The first part, Sunset Watchers, unfolds
through black-and-white portraits of three
women reenacting a phantom folktale fol-
lowing the 1896 tsunami in Japan—images
that also allude to the anxious premonition
of those living with depression. Interspersed
colored photographs recall Peng’s bodily
memory of being bedridden due to illness.
The second part, Kuāfù Chases The Sun, car-
ries stills from two video works about Peng’s
father, who retired from the People’s Liber-
ation Army ten years after his daughter left
home. In these images, his body is constantly
propelled forward by the cogs of a system,
breaking the stagnation of the first part, only
to fall into nothingness ultimately.
Peng likens the depressed body to a recep-
tor and amplifier of signals from the future,
much like the camera she holds in her hands.
In the tension between stillness and motion,
waiting and chasing, the book poses a ques-
tion: Are those paralyzed by the impending
catastrophe in need of treatment, or is it the
society—numbed by its relentless pursuit of
progress—that requires awakening?