Chinese Version:
English Version:
RH: Perhaps this year?
D: What about this year?
RH: We might do something, meet up.
D: My diary is quite busy. Aren't you too?
RH: My day job is quite tiring; it's hard to keep up. Though you are my muse, and without you, my work is empty. The mannequins in my work are just vessels for you, Ms. D.
D: You flatter me but I am not to be called or induced. As long as you're around, I shall come.
RH: But what luck it is that we've managed to meet in this elevator, what are the chances?
D: Millions, so I've heard, though I move so quickly, I don't really keep up with the news, sometimes it feels as though it follows me.
RH: Well... I can tell you what's new, if that's the case.D: So be it. It seems we're going to the same floor and have time to kill.
D: You're a photographer, right? What business have you got doing high fashion?
RH: I already told you my work was busy, this past year alone I've worked Numéro China, that French publication Purple...
D: You're a photographer, right? What business have you got doing high fashion?
RH: I don't. It's a means to an end if anything. As I've mentioned, I've been a long time admirer of you, clothes don't hang around for very long at all. Their appeal is only as long as a season. And after that...
D: They're gone... Now that I think about it, what we do isn't so different.
RH: Well, the fashion's just an accessory to the main body of my work. I'm quite obsessed with capturing my close friends on camera. My style has me pinned as an enfant terrible by many, but it's not about the reactions I get...
D: I've noticed. I understand your work is quite arresting when pitted with social norms.
RH: I do understand, but to me, these norms never existed in the first place. This incandescent freedom is inspired by your work, actually.
D: Ah, I do see that now. My work can be understood as liberating, in a slightly different way. I don't have governmental constraints you do however...
RH: And for that, I envy. The people where I'm from see my photos as blasphemous, but I'm just unapologetic. China has never been an entirely liberal place, so naturally, that is what I challenge.
D: Lots of have people have died for blasphemy you know.
RH: Everybody and their mothers.
D: What about your mother?
RH: The only muse that trumps yourself, in fact. The reason I live. Have you seen my series "My mum"?
D: I've heard of it... I understand how it is influenced by myself more and more. A sense of momento mori and hedonism. The severed swine head with Sunday-best gold earrings, the fascination with taxidermied peacocks and swans and plumes. Your fascination with the suspended state of indulgence, the ephemeral... Is that about right?
RH: I don't know. Maybe?
D: How wouldn't you know?
RH: My business is not in explanation, only expression.
D: An expression through nudity and the short lived... An ode to every level of liberation, down to the base and sexual. You did mention the oppressive aspects of Chinese culture…
RH: Both a blessing and a curse; though neither in particular.
D: On that note, we’ve arrived. I must get going, but I'm sure we'll see each other soon enough.
