»The Bearable & Bees« Part 2

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Beijing, Chen Zhe is a photo-based artist currently based between Los Angeles and China.

Identifying the physical self-destruction of her subjects as an act of spiritual cleansing, Chen Zhe uses her photography to penetrate the psychological labyrinth of self-realization and reveal

truth of human conditions, especially the conditions of growing up and adapting to the external

world. Chen received her BFA from Art Center College Design, CA and is the winner of 2011 Inge Morath Award, Three Shadows Award and International Photography Award. Chen's work has been exhibited and published internationally and is included in public and private collections. www.zheis.com

ABOUT THE BOOK

The book features two projects by Chen Zhe: The Bearable (2007-2010) and Bees (2010-2012).

Among them, The Bearable is a photo documentation of Chen Zhe’s self-harm history spanning half a decade, while Bees concerns a collection of people who, when faced with chaos, violence,

alienation and irredeemable losses in life, feels propelled to leave physical traces and markings on their bodies, in order to testify and preserve a pure and sensitive mind from within.

Besides 90 photographs, Bees also includes 40 groups of journals and letters exchanged between

Chen Zhe and her subject matters in the duration of two years. The translations from Chinese to English are listed in the latter part of this pamphlet.

CHEN ZHE: PUNCTURED BY A GAZE Text by Einar Engström

At a very young age, Chen Zhe has already widely been touted as one of the most compelling

Chinese photographers practicing today. In 2011 alone, she was the recipient of the Inga Morath Award, the Three Shadows Photography Award, and the Lianzhou Photographer of the Year award. These accolades are due, not in small part, to aesthetically effortless images born of me-

ticulously wrought psychological complexities. The primary feature of most of her work to this day is self-harm—i.e. deliberate injury to oneself, typically as a manifestation of a psychological

or psychiatric disorder—which is as alienating in reality as it may be, despite its graceful presentation, to those who encounter her photographs.

Chen Zhe’s photography stands out as the conscious “visualization” not only of the actions of self-harm, but of the conditions that surround it. Assuming that the camera assigns new mean-

ing to self-injury by allowing the act to transcend the physical memory of pain is, to a degree, not entirely baseless. Without the intervention of the camera lens, perhaps the injury will cease to

exist once the pain has gone and the scars disappeared—hence the need to repeatedly self-harm.

Yet it might also be assumed that the excitement or pleasure of mutilating oneself is to a degree based in the thrill of seeing one’s own blood, in the fascination of watching a bruise form on one’s own body. Chen compounds the act of self-injury by recording it, augmenting its psychological dimensions for both spectator and self-harmer by offering it to the public sphere.

In her breakthrough series “The Bearable,” the documentation of a half-decade of her own selfharming, the effect on Chen’s psychology was less immediate than gradual. In the beginning, her

frames were but random, the first thing at hand worth shooting. Slowly, the photos took form of what the artist would later call “healing”; it was only through photographing her illness that she could succeed in overcoming it. The photographic act distilled pain and suffering to the point

that the personal ceased to be at their whim. In other words, Chen’s art became a personal cop-

again, aren’t all friendships?)

confronted their own physical and spiritual struggles by way of the paintbrush, and even com-

For her viewers, the effect is quite the opposite. The subjects of “Bees” are, objectified for the

her lens away from herself?

nal cognizance, reminding us of the unseen and unspoken, and induce a visceral awareness of

ing mechanism. This is far from novelty; innumerable creators of times past and present have mon folk turn to art as therapy in times of crisis or depression. But what of when the artist aims

Chen’s “Bees” documents the self-injury of a “marginalized group of people in China, who, faced with chaos, violence, alienation and irredeemable losses in life, feel propelled to leave physical

traces and markings on their bodies, in order to testify and preserve a pure and sensitive mind

from within.” Just as within this universe the body is an isolated entity—we are born alone, we die alone, the existentialists, et al.—so are these “bees” cut off from society. (The term is in refer-

ence to the bees of Virgil’s The Georgics: “…if hurt, they breathe/Venom into their bite, cleave to the veins/And let the sting lie buried, and leave their lives/Behind them in the wound.”) For this series, Chen’s own identity as a self-harmer acted as both a means and an end—in order to gain

her subjects’ trust and confidence, she would first have to prove “concatenated identities,” by revealing her own scars. Without anthropologically separating them from their own lives, from

their wounds, Chen rejoins them with society through 90 photographs and 40 groups of letters and correspondence.

Chen Zhe’s artistic interaction with human suffering can be equated to the philosophical introspection of the human body. With the camera, Chen parses out her subjects’ existence in the

same way the thinker parses out his own body via logic and reasoning. She does for them what

she does for herself: objectify the pain and depersonalize the trauma. Once her subjects are offered a logical distance from which to view themselves—perspectives that rejuvenate in direct

proportion to time, offering subject unto itself, renewed as detached object—they are immediately more capable of understanding the reasons for their actions. The isolated “I” of the image helps relocate the isolated “I” of reality, to trigger a self-reflection no longer enshrouded by physical pain or existential isolation. (Chen’s relationship with them is therapeutic, but then

owners, subjectified for us, the trauma personalized. The exhibited images generate commuour shared physicality. This awareness is generated by, to invoke Barthes, punctum: “personal

memory based not on the public archive but a private repertoire… occurs when there is a match between a signifier in the scene (in the photograph), and a scene in the memory.” When we see the wounds on these people’s bodies, we helplessly recall the wounds we ourselves have

sustained in life: when we first fell down and scraped our knees, when the nurse first took our blood, when we got our first tattoo… (More precisely: we come into contact with the inexplicable

“essence” of these memories.) The most intensely private meaning pertains to our physiology and all its capacities, to the mortality we have both tasted and feared—“the impossible science

of the unique being.” It is a precise indicator of our humanity that we cannot help but experience stomach-level discomfort amid the gaze of Chen Zhe’s art.

We should not forget that Chen Zhe is not a metaphysician, but an artist. Within the framework

of contemporary art, one immediate (and rather conservative) reaction to Chen Zhe’s work is to

seek parallels with the Viennese Actionists. Understandably: as with, say, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, much of her work involves the abuse of the body, often for the viewer in gruesome ways. Yet in

Chen’s case, this abuse precedes the artwork, not the other way around. In its formalization, Chen’s practice softly yet emphatically eschews shock and controversy. She does employ the

body as a surface for art’s creation—or rather, departs from it—but she does not exploit it. What some see as grotesque, she sees as beautiful. Hers is not political defiance, but personal alliance.

It is a lucid exploration of suffering, of isolation, of the kindred thoughts, expressions, and actions that most of us dare not share.

Originally published on LEAP: The International Art Magazine of Contemporary China, Feb 2013

BEES: JOURNALS & LETTERS (In their order of occurrence in the book)

#01

… said the man softly with downcast eyes. He seemed to have an uncanny purchase on the drift of my thought.

“Let me be as frank as possible with you,” the man spoke up, “Speaking frankly and speaking the

truth are two different things entirely. Honesty is to truth as prow is to stern. Honesty appears

first and truth appears last. The interval between varies in direct proportion to the size of ship.

Within anything of size, truth takes a long time in coming. Sometimes it only manifests itself posthumously. Therefore, should I impart you with no truth at this juncture, that is through no fault of mine. Nor yours.”

“The reason I called you all this way here was to set the ship in forward motion. You and I to-

gether shall move it forward. By discussing matters in all honesty, we shall proceed one step at a time closer to the truth.”

- Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

#02

#03

I thought I was someone

EUROPE

So I desperately tried to prove that I was some one

Music doesn’t reject people. Machines don’t reject people.

Until I realized I was no one

But finally understood that I wasn’t anyone I had envisioned After figuring out that my being is a mistake I would have to die, or change myself

There are things that I would rather die over than change But it had been alright I bore with it

We reject us.

#04

#05

These past few days, I’ve been haunted by the desire to speak to someone. But then again, I

SITTING

wouldn’t know what to say. I felt like life was being sucked out of me, or as if I was drowning. It

happens periodically, but this time, there was no pain, no vomiting, and I didn’t feel like the wind

by Shuntarou Tanikawa

had pierced through my body. I could only look for you, and that tacky novel I read. All of a sud-

The afternoon is half sunshine half overcast

moving around in the darkest parts. I felt safe, so I rode over the banister, and started yelling. I

As a clam without the shell

den I felt an invisible pull from my body, sharp and urgent, so I climbed to the rooftop and started didn’t have the gut to yell loudly, so I just shouted out my hopes and dreams, which I won’t talk

I sit on the couch

about with you just yet. The sky was a sickening red. When I saw the bright sunshine glaring at

There are things I had to do

thought, I think I’m actually dead and have found peace.

Just enjoying the blissful ecstasy

me today I started crying uncontrollably. I think I died and was brought back to life. On a second

But I’m not doing any of it

Beautiful things are beautiful And ugly things

Can be beautiful too Just being here

Is an extraordinary thing I am no longer who I am I stand up

And drink so water

Water is extraordinary too

#06

#07

Dead · End

I do not have a self. It hasn’t been lost. I’ve simply never had one. I’ve always relied on imitation to survive. Without imitation, my world will cease to function.

I had always thought that my biggest enemy was myself. But I realized that, maybe I modeled the

defective self after other people. My biggest enemies are the others. My whole life is a competition between other people.

I’ve become envious of people I used to consider inferior and not worthy of my criticism. Yes. At

least they live in the world as themselves. I despised them, only because people who held power and authority might have expressed contempt at them, and I merely imitated their ability to do

so - just so I would feel elevated and superior. As for the real me, the real me… is no more than a deranged lunatic who clings to imitation to survive.

I can state fairly and squarely, that I wouldn’t be able to live for a second if I gave up imitation

altogether. It’s the only thing I have faith in now. I am a frog, drenched in despair, gaping at the

tiny piece of sky above my head. Whatever part of me is exposed in the sun, the whole world

would see it. I am scared. I don’t want to be exposed, not even a little bit. I futilely try to escape to a corner somewhere, to a nice place that the sun has already abandoned. And there, I will swallow my last breath.

#08

#09

I sympathize with what Rieko Misuura expressed in Sebastian.

There are only two types of people in this world: people who have no friends, and people who

A real scum is someone who has utterly no respect for the betterment of the world whatsoever,

have any.

Simply put, there is no elite in the world. There are only scums and worldlings. and everyone else is a worldling

From self-mutilation, I have the ability to negate a part of what’s dictated as good by the world, and so I can keep my physical comfort and wholesomeness.

Death could be normality, and living doesn’t necessarily entail optimism. When many roads are presented to you, you don’t always have to take the shortcut.

Following that thought, people who can only see the possibility of betterment but no downfall are quite inconceivable.

have very few friends. Those who claim to have many friends are all phonies. They don’t actually To me, you’re not a friend. You are just like me - another person with no friends.

We were born like this, and naturally we feel empathy for people of the same kind. How I feel (about you) is how I feel about kissing narcissus flowers on a lake.

Friends have low capacities. Friends don’t go kissing narcissus flowers.

Friends are friends. Narcissus are fairytales.

#010

#11

I hope clueless audiences could understand these words but not be affected too much by them,

I read what I wrote here, and was suddenly moved by myself. Sitting in the cold office, my heart

would remember “bees” as being “powerful”, “determined”, and “full of life”.

the hardest of times, I can still have so much love for life.

so that they could experience these pieces without any preoccupation. I hope that an “outsider”

is melting with the vitality in these words. I’m tearing up – I’m proud of myself. I’m happy that at

“we” consistently tried to keep holding on to our determination, striving to lead a “normal life” –

For the first time in my life, I feel alive. I feel like that I have value,

that I’m a fighter.

The more people I meet, the more complete I am.

calm, content, and even happy. I’m not gonna quit. Whenever I think about giving up, I tell myself

that someone might need me, and that I could bring happiness to someone.

I want to be able to see more, to take in the vastness of the world, and become a diverse spirit.

I have a lot of opportunities. I’ve undergone pain and I’ve gained experience; I’m optimistic and I dream big. I could have the whole world.

That’s it. Thanks for reading this letter.

I want to tell you that, I’ve never hesitated whether I should tell you something.

I’m a-hundred-percent honest with you. I enjoy that. I think that’s what a friendship should be.

I’m ecstatic that you thought about calling me. No matter it’s over the phone or on Skype, you’ll never be presumptuous to me, it won’t ever be a bother, and I’ll never feel awkward that you called. <heart> <heart>

#12

#13

I think being depressed is okay, while being repressed is extremely detrimental.

After my trip to Amsterdam,

own choice, and there is no excuse to be evasive.

That one night, I became aware of how juvenile and bogus I had been,

Whenever I’m in the doldrums, I tell myself that, everything I’m going through is a result of my Feeling entrapment within my own free will can only be a sign that I have a lack of understanding in who I am.

I always feel like I’m still very inept in taking control of and making use of my own freedom.

There’s no other way but to flush myself out.

I consistently recorded all the failures I’ve had.

I had always longed for there to be a mentor character in my life who can objectively answer all

my questions. But reality is crowded with people who merely try to impose their values on you, and you’d have to laboriously remove their selfish subjective-ness to recognize what they are actually saying.

I often have to be involved in moving and removing things in order to stay trustingly passionate about things. It’s rather exhausting.

But the information and knowledge I get from human interactions make me obliged to continue..

Letter from NO Jan 12, 2012

I feel like I have reconciled with myself.

And I held on to that honesty I felt within.

I had always had conversations with myself in my journal entries, tempting myself to change.

It was in fact a painful process.

I hope I could keep this calm perspective, this willingness to be friends with myself.

I hope I can protect my nature,instead of distorting it.

Now I always cry, but it is very different from before. I had been so repressed before that crying had lost its significance.

I plan to accept everything that I had considered flawed in my character, and conserve them for the long run.

I don’t need to be better. I just want to live the way I am.

My sense might not allow me to be happy, but my sensibility undoubtedly can.

Letter from NO Apr 26, 2012

#14

#15

“What I want to do.

Yes, you are the same. I wonder what the rest of your life will be. Don’t spoil it by renunciations.

I do what I hate.

and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.

I cannot do.

Was I false to you?”

… Don’t deceive yourself. Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, You may fancy yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of color in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with

it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play, that it is on things like these that our lives depend. … There are mo-

ments when the odour of lilas blanc passes suddenly across me, and I have to live the strangest month of my life over again.

- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

#16

#17

It might be embarrassing to admit, but I still believe that, if faith really exists in this world, love

I speak to myself every night

ing other people. If someone’s faith has only enough space for himself/herself, then just let the

I am not lacking in love

has to be the heart of faith. “A person who’s solely focused on himself/herself is incapable of lovwind carry him/her away.”

I walk alone in the rain. The moon shines high above my head. On either side of me, shadowy

wooden houses sit in a row. As I step across water, it keeps splashing on to my calves. There is piano music leaping out of a tiny bar under a plastic tarp. I imagine the grumpy middle-aged

I have suddenly realized

As life progressed, my parents, friends, and past lovers

Have always conveyed their love to me in various ways A girl that’s not in dire need of love or money Would always dominate a relationship

owner swinging his damp fingers, creating this peaceful tune. I also hear his daughter cleaning:

Why?

water trickling down from the wash cloth – it’s music too.

Is the need to give love

the clanging of plates and silverware; the empty beer bottles banging against each other; the

As the song fades away, I carry on strolling in the dark mist of the night. I know (never so clearly

before) I don’t have to hurt myself any longer. I throw the blade I hide in my wallet (for the last time) into the water. Without any reservation, I accept, subvert, and forgive all the sadness from my past and my future. If I was holding an umbrella at this moment, I would spin it around and

let the rainwater roll out along the canopy into the night. I know that, though invisible right now, the stars in the deep sky are radiating just as bright; and I know that I will be able to keep holding on.

July 18, 2012

Because the only reason I would fall for someone Even if love is a game

I’m the one that’s down to play

As for the sufferings and heartbreaks

They are only tricks built into the system

And have no significant impact on the game itself I always feel like I’m afflicted. But the fact is, I’m just playing!

#18

#19

Darkness. There’s a lot I don’t remember, or maybe I just don’t have the nerve to. Deep down,

I don’t write anything brutal or deathly anymore, not because I’m unable to, but because I’ve

if that’s darkness per se.

you seem cool. It’s a problem you have to deal with on your own. It’s a darkness you have to face

what’s there has always been there. It might be a bit childish to call it suicidality. But I’m not sure

Self-harm. I have had experiences and I think about it occasionally still. But I always have my res-

ervations towards it. Maybe it’s because now my heart is not as pure anymore. When I look back

on those days, nothing bad comes to mind. Self-harm is in fact rather uncomplicated. (That’s how I understand it.)

Depression. Recently it has been brought to my attention that some of my friends are depressed.

Whenever I talk about it with people around me, they always say stay away from it or don’t ever

be depressed. I think I know what it means to be depressed, like those times when I would just lie in my room purposelessly. I would have no desire to eat or open the window. I can still get into that mode pretty easily, especially when I go to bed. <Illustration>

It would look somewhat like this.

started to realize that I’d rather be crude than be extreme all the time. Extremity doesn’t make alone when the entire world is asleep. Or it might just simply be an addiction.

“Everything is at peace now. There is nothing for me to wreck anymore; I can only wreck myself.

Everything is at peace now, but the plight of existence will never find peace.”

#20

I don’t think you have to marginalize yourself, or renounce the acceptance of human interactions

Consequently, I started questioning my own suffering too. Nonetheless, I realized that my misery

are always of virtue as well as vice. Everyone’s soul is well-rounded. Things aren’t always how

alive – that’s the only conclusion I got. In other words, I should just fucking die. Only then will I

and emotions, to be a true pursuer of art. Humanity consists of the high and the low; people

they appear to be. As profound as your work presents itself, there exists a great deal of havoc as well. But you have always been amiable, and you’re honest with me, which, I imagine, is the way

you conduct yourself with many others. The kind of communication you are dedicated to, for which you completely open yourself up, along with your consistent aspiration to document and

examine humanity, is extremely rare in today’s world. “An almost uncomfortable commitment to honesty”, a phrase my mentor used to say as inspiration for me, describes you perfectly.

These days, people glorify suffering, and consider it yet another thing to be competitive about.

Elderlys say to young people: youth knows no pain; your sufferings are not sufferings, and you

don’t even know what it means to suffer. The poor says to the rich: get over your petty first-world problems; your sufferings are not sufferings, and you don’t even know what it means to suffer.

The dudes say to emo kids: stop being so camp; your sufferings are not sufferings, and you don’t even know what it means to suffer. In a world that no longer assume benevolence from God

and compassion from the Buddha, everyone allows themselves and only themselves to suffer,

and becomes extremely critical towards other people’s sufferings. They are afraid that others’ sufferings will take the spotlight away from them, and deviate the sympathy they deserve. This

world has taught me that, for people like me, suffering is not only prohibited, but also unethical.

The world seems to believe that the torment I feel is meaningless. It’s the insignificant nostalgia towards seasons changing; it’s the intoxicated nights after an ugly break-up.

is concretely real. If I suffer so much without being allowed to, maybe I’m not supposed to be be free from all the judgments and criticism that encroach me. I don’t know when it all started,

but I turned to cutting myself. The desire becomes especially strong when I see other people suffer. When I watch news reports on natural and man-made disasters, when I see disabled people

begging for money on the street, when I talk to people who have lost loved ones, I make myself bleed. It mitigates the guilt of being alive. I cut myself when I’m happy, because I don’t deserve

happiness; I cut myself when I’m suffering, because I’m not allowed to suffer. I should die, but I’m scared of death. Therefore, the only way out is to bleed quietly, so I could find absolution for the crime I’ve committed by being inexplicably afflicted.

#21

Sometimes people really don’t understand, but I know it’s not their fault, and if there’s anyone to

It is scary when you are no longer living in this world, but watching it from afar, with so much

and not working and not doing anything to get over myself, I tell them I’m going to get married

living but you are no longer so certain, because life seems too distant, and you can’t handle of

blame it would be me. When they ask me what I’m doing and why I’m not pulling myself together in Siberia. They think the joke is a kind of escapism, but really I’m plunging myself right into it

without the slightest intension t return. They think I ‘m sitting in a comfortable chair sipping

tea, thinking about the ancient melancholy that successfully romanticized countless failed poets,

virgin brides, and middle-class youngsters who read too much for their own good. They think

I’m too young to be hopeless, yet too old to be hopeful in the real sense of the word, so I must be going through a phase that will eventually pass and leave me nice and dry. That’s how people

think of human suffering in general, especially the suffering of those people, whom they think

they have reasons to envy, even though the sufferer ought to be looked down upon by them, in their world…

But how can I tell them, without sounding like a self-pitying drama queen, that I simply wish I

were dead? How can I tell them that the reason for my lethargy is neither fatigue nor exhaustion, but a self-hatred so violent that it leaves physical scars on my body? How can I tell them that I

don’t actually feel mistreated, don’t feel dissatisfied with life, don’t even feel much self-pity, and

that I wish I were dead not because I really want to die, but because I know my existence is a

burden to everyone and a plain waste of resource? How can I tell them that during those long hours of the night - when they think I’m wasting away my life by refusing to get better - I’m crying until I can no longer breathe, simply because I hate myself for being so cowardly to die when I know my organs would be made better use of in the bodies of those who are in need of donors?

exhaustion and despair, you float on top of the earth but way below the sky. You know you are

lightness of death. But then again it all comes down to consciousness and and the loss of consciousness - dreaming, waking, sleeping, dying… I hate to return to reality, but I’ve lost my ticket.

Here I am, trapped inside my obsession, and I don’t know where it’s taking me. The world is suddenly nothing but art, yet art is not life and it doesn’t give birth. Nor does it kill. It is just there, or maybe it doesn’t exist. It promises one what is nonexistent, and one is bound to feel the pain.

#22

#23

So I am still here

There are a few things that I don’t know but am supposed to; there are a few things that I do

These wounds, and the unspeakable pain

I had a dream two nights ago. There was a room: wide, dusty, and devoid of light. Inside the room,

And I know I am stuck here for a while

Keep reminding me that there is life in this body My body is still living Like a White Dwarf

It’s fading, but it will keep on living For a long, long time

(So please don’t worry!:) ) Andrea

Oct 19, 2012

know but am not supposed to.

a dying man said to me: “you need a map. It will show you the way so you could venture around .” Paralyzed in his chair, the man continued, “You also need a deck of cards. It will exercise your mind so foolishness will stay out of your way.”

He left me a deck of cards before he slipped away. I thought to myself how effortless traveling

around would be if a deck of cards is all I needed. I could just pocket it. There’s nothing more efficient.

I spread the deck out, and the back of the cards pieced together a map. At that point, I had no idea

I was dreaming. An acute feeling of revelation, discovery, and profound sadness came over me.

The man gave me this great gift, but I had nothing to repay him. In my mind, I started listing out everything I have liked and cherished. What about a skull shaped ashtray, even? Maybe that will be enough of a return gift? As I was anxiously calculating, I woke myself up.

I jogged down my experience in the dream hastily. Right next to me, the skull shaped ashtray sits silently on a stool.

This very dream made me feel like there is meaning in my existence.

Just kidding.

#24

#25

I have collected birth charts from self-mutilators, and I know some astrologers have studied this

Like what Jean-Paul Sartre said, remove existence from the self, transpire the grease from time,

A good number of these birth charts indicate that, self-mutilators usually have controlling and

So we could make clear precise notes like a saxophone.

topic extensively.

coercive parents that prohibit them from self-discovery and self-realization. The Luminaries (sun and moon) appear to aspect Saturn or Neptune, many a time forming hard aspects. These aspects signify that the parental figures are used to pressure their children’s true self (Sun) with

Ethics (Saturn, Neptune). As a result, these children’s ego becomes substantially impaired. The

over-imposed morality (Superego) overshadows their own conscience. They become prone to feeling a sense of guilt whenever they are unable to reach an external standard. These chart

owners have been constantly haunted by an overwhelming sense of compunction and failure.

Hurting themselves in turn is a way of punishment, and could be explained as an internalized

overpowering parent-child relationship. Their psyche splits into two; one half acts as a “parent”,

while the other half acts as the “child”. The inner parent punishes the inner child, and that’s the only way for them to defeat the prevalent guilt.

twist it hard, and wring it dry. It will make us pure and it will make us firm.

#26

#27

When you see these wounds

This was the most secret, most profound agony I’d suffered and I assumed I’d never be able to

Gave you the ability

(when I began to explain it), it wasn’t the least bit sincere.

What kind of a power To maintain perfectly

Amongst heartbreak, revulsion and fear A polite and proper face?

share it with another; the agony was quite real, but as I realized with surprise at that instant

- Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

CHEN ZHE: WORKS 2007-2012

Printed in Beijing, China, April 2014 Self-published, Dummy Edition Photographs: Chen Zhe Book Design: Chen Zhe Essay: Einar Engström

Translations: Will Fengming Dai All rights reserved © 2014 Chen Zhe www.zheis.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic, mechanic, photocopying, record or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Funding for Bees project was provided, in part, by The Magnum Foundation’s Inge Morath Award.