Cliff

Creation Time: 2025 Size: 106x125x150cm Material: Polyurethane Spray foam, plants, wood shavings, steel plate, etc.

“Cliff” is a metaphor for collapse—both personal breakdown and the disintegration of an era. This work originated from Song Jianshu’s attention to the group of Chinese migrants known as the “run” population—people who immigrate to the U.S. via irregular or perilous routes.

Often, what makes it difficult for the artist to empathize is why some people who still have certain choices within China would opt for such a dangerous and uncertain path of irregular immigration to the U.S. Yet, he deeply understands that many are forced onto this path by overwhelming hardship and injustice, a choice made when there is no other choice. At the same time, many view this perilous journey as a shortcut, an opportunity to change their own and their families’ destinies.

But in most cases, what we observe in these migrants’ reality is a transplantation akin to moving soil from one place to another. Chinese cultural background, lifestyle, and ideology are their soil—the foundation for their survival. Once they leave this soil, are they truly freer, or even less free? In America, do they have freedom of language? Freedom of status? Freedom of healthcare and personal safety? One might argue that freedom means making autonomous choices and bearing the risks of those choices. That is true—but after making this choice, do they actually gain more freedom or lose it?

In Song Jianshu’s view, choosing irregular migration is like cutting off all retreat. We all know the paths and costs involved in obtaining legal status and residency after this decision. This precarious, no-turning-back situation is precisely like standing on a “cliff edge.” Is the only road ahead really a smooth path? With the tightening of immigration policies under the Trump administration, even the prospects for undocumented immigrants have likely been cut off. Does this desperate predicament really meet their expectations of freedom?

Is their dilemma caused by the pressures of the real world, or by the cognitive limits imposed by the information silos in which people live? The work does not offer a definitive answer. But once one chooses to “run,” one can hardly think too much about the rest. Whether carrying the old soil or rooting fiercely in a new environment, like a plant, one must survive in the present. Even on the edge of a steep cliff, can’t one still bloom brilliantly? Yet, the plants in the exhibition hall—an environment lacking sunlight—will inevitably wither quickly, reflecting the artist’s pessimism about the predicament faced by this migrant group today.