初次来到中国，语言不通、不了解当地文化给我带来了许多挑战。我在过去45天中所创作的作品正反映了这些挑战，以及我对周围环境的观察。在部分作品中，我将宁波市作为一个特定的场域，不仅观察城市中的自然环境与建筑样式，更关注到人们的生活状态以及中西文化之间的异同。

身处一个全然陌生的环境之中，我深刻感受到宁波乃至中国带来的海量图景与信息轰炸。当我逐渐融入这个环境后，我不禁开始思考如何直观地传达这种体验。

在这些作品中可以明显地看到宁波及其周边的风景。反复使用的指纹图像不仅代表着我的处境，更是自我本身的象征。指纹独一无二，由生至死始终不变，因此它或许是一个合适的符号形式。指纹还寄寓着传统与现代的变迁。人类最古老的艺术作品就是用指印完成的；时至今日，指纹也被用作个人身份识别的依据。每个人也许在抵达这里前不久刚使用过它，而在离开之前，还会再次使用指纹来拍摄照片、发送信息，或者进行许多智能手机需要通过指尖操作完成的任何事。

Being in China for the first time and not knowing the language or the culture presented many challenges. Work that was created over the last 45 days is reflective of those challenges and observations of my surroundings. Some of those observations included Ningbo as a specific place with its flora, fauna and architecture, the people and differences and similarities in our cultures.

Being in a completely unfamiliar situation I felt acutely aware that Ningbo and China were imprinting on me with a bombardment of imagery and information. Assimilating to my environment I thought about how I was going to visually communicate this experience.

Scenes from in and around Ningbo are apparent in the work. The repeated use of the fingerprints has come to represent my situation and is the symbolic equivalent of self. With no two fingerprints the same and remaining the same from birth to death, it seemed like a logical form to focus on. It also represents the traditional and the contemporary. Humans have used fingerprints to create some of the very first Art. Through time we have used them for individual identification. You may have used yours shortly before arrival here and you will use them again before you leave to take a picture, message a friend, or any of a plethora of things your Smartphone requires your finger tips to do.

——Andrew Redington

2023/11/28