Fetch the Moon from the Seabed (海底撈月), a long-form poem, investigates yearning and migration through language and translation. Taking the form of a Chinese language-learning workbook, the poem reveals the emotional and physical exertion that speaking a second language and cultural assimilation requires.
The poem’s structure invites different reading approaches—left to right (Western) and right to left (traditional Chinese). The characters to wish (想) and return (回) mean wish to return when read from left to right, but when read in reverse (回想), it means recollection. Different meanings and interpretations gradually unfold through this directional composition. By framing the poem as worksheets, the project studies the relationships between language, home, and displacement. It asks: What does it mean to lose a language in order to gain a language? Why do we yearn for a place we rationally know is not the same as in our memory or imagination? -Publisher
