# Project Description A Scene Suspended in Absence Qiushi Wang Summary Final work Qiushi Wang (b.1997, China) is a visual artist currently in final year of the MRes Moving Image program at Central Saint Martins. Her practice spans photography, moving image, and performance. In recent years, she has focused on reinterpreting second-hand archives to explore themes of identity, migration, and memory, challenging dominant historical narratives and uncovering stories that have been overlooked or forgotten. Qiushi Wang (b.1997, China) is a visual artist currently in final year of the MRes Moving Image p... College Central Saint Martins Course MRes Art: Moving Image Graduation year 2025 In an antique shop by the sea in Hastings, my gaze was caught by a black-and-white photograph of an Asian man. After speaking with the shopkeeper, I learned that the photo, along with several others, had been acquired from a Japanese individual. Beyond that, nothing more was known. No names, no locations, no context—only a date inscribed on the back hinted at their origin: perhaps from Japan’s Shōwa era. How did these photographs cross oceans and continents to arrive at this British seaside town? Did they travel with a migrant, or were they abandoned along the way? Amid these silences and gaps, I turned to the method of W.G. Sebald, weaving a fictional narrative of migration from these lost images. Here, the boundary between memory, image, and history begins to blur. Fiction, perhaps, is not an escape from truth, but a detour through which truth may be approached. Final work A Scene Suspended in Absence In an antique shop by the sea in Hastings, my gaze was caught by a black-and-white photograph of an Asian man. After speaking with the shopkeeper, I learned that the photo, along with several others, had been acquired from a Japanese individual. Beyond that, nothing more was known. No names, no locations, no context—only a date inscribed on the back hinted at their origin: perhaps from Japan’s Shōwa era. How did these photographs cross oceans and continents to arrive at this British seaside town? Did they travel with a migrant, or were they abandoned along the way? Amid these silences and gaps, I turned to the method of W.G. Sebald, weaving a fictional narrative of migration from these lost images. Here, the boundary between memory, image, and history begins to blur. Fiction, perhaps, is not an escape from truth, but a detour through which truth may be approached. Share this project In an antique shop by the sea in Hastings, my gaze was caught by a black-and-white photograph of an Asian man. After speaking with the shopkeeper, I learned that the photo, along with several others, had been acquired from a Japanese individual. Beyond... A link to this page has been added to your clipboard