A bullet-riddled seagull camera connects the eyes of four generations to the pulse of a century-old China. In 1927, my great-grandfather Lin Huaiyuan used it to record the oaths made during the war; in 1959, his grandfather Lin Jianguo captured the glory of the builders in the dust of the Red Flag Canal; in 1988, his father Lin Weiguo photographed the pain of transformation in front of the demolition ruins; in 2013, Lin Xiaofan, a graduate of Beijing Film Academy, took over the camera and asked in the era of algorithms and traffic: When memories can be digitized, AI-enabled or even forged, what is the truth worth protecting?
"Four Generations of Family and Country Dreams Echoed in Time and Space" uses "family memory" as a rope to travel through the four major eras of the Anti-Japanese War, construction, reform, and digital eras, and carve out the joys and sorrows of small people in the grand history. This is not only an epic inheritance of four generations of photographers, but also a mirror that reflects the vicissitudes of China over the past century - a look at how ordinary people protect love and dignity in the tide of the times, and how they define "home" and "country" amidst great changes. When the camera is finally passed into the hands of Generation Z, they will write unfinished answers at the interface between the Metaverse and reality.
