Moksha
Westbound Journey
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The hutongs are etched deeply into my childhood. I remember weaving through their intricate alleys on my way to school, leaving behind a lasting imprint. Yet today, those memories have begun to blur. Evictions, demolitions, renovations—sweeping waves of transformation—have gradually obscured the hutongs in my mind, leaving behind only a haze, like the residue of a dream.
The hutong is not merely a place, but a state of mind—a liminal zone where one hovers between the familiar and the estranged, between belonging and dislocation. Through my lens, the hutongs emerge as a blurred dreamscape, inviting the viewer to search for that ineffable sense of existence.
“The city is like a sponge, absorbing the ceaseless tide of memories and swelling with them.”
Beijing, however, is a sponge under pressure. Beneath the weight of modernization, its pores release memories that slip away endlessly.
Dormiveglia—an Italian word—describes the threshold between waking and dreaming, where things feel both real and unreal, present and dissolving at once. Beijing’s hutongs exist precisely in this state: they are the texture of the city, carriers of memory and everyday life, yet they are rendered elusive in the midst of relentless change. In their space, one senses a dreamlike illusion—where past and present coexist, where disappearance and regeneration intertwine.
Dormiveglia