Secret of Forking Paths

小徑分岔的果園/小径分岔的果园

Pineapples were the favourite food of a father who suddenly disappeared, leaving only his absence to linger over the family’s pineapple fields. Raised by her grandmother and aunt, the daughter catches fleeting glimpses of him in dreams. As an adult, she moves between the city and her hometown, still burying cut pineapple crowns in a corner of her small garden - a quiet ritual that connects her to her grandmother and aunt, and preserves the faint trace of her absent father.

A light visual diary that traces intimate emotional experiences with a delicate and sensitive subjective camera. The black-and-white tones and the shadows of the trees reflecting on the walls and sleeping faces evoke the experimental sensibility of Maya Deren’s cinema. The title references The Garden of Forking Paths, a riddle set up by Borges, and the answer is time. -Qi Wu. Co-lead Curator of Odyssey 2024