Mr Heng’s suitcase

On a recent trip to Paris, whilst staying in the Montmartre area of the city, in a bar not far from my hotel, the proprietor, a friendly old man called Guy, gave me a little shabby old suitcase. It contained a collection of photographs and assorted paraphernalia, which appeared to belong to someone called Mr Heng, or Chi Chi, as he was better known. The suitcase had been given to the bar owner many years before by a beautiful and mysterious woman who claimed to know Chi Chi. It appears that Chi Chi had disappeared in rather curious circumstances after a fire had destroyed his apartment and studio on Rue Gabrielle. Very little survived the fire, just a few notebooks and a handful of charred photographs. The images intrigue me, they are beguiling and melancholic, visual clues that enable the merest of glimpses into a past life.Little is known about Chi Chi. He was a photographer, who, it seems, had to flee China in the early 1970’s to avoid persecution during the Cultural Revolution. Guy remembers him as a regular cus-tomer, who was fairly quiet and pretty much kept himself to himself, but who would occasionally enjoy the company of beautiful and intriguing women. I assume it is these woman that appear in his pictures. I have no idea who they are, or were, but they all seemed to have played an important role in Chi Chi’s life. What follows, is a collection of prints and artefacts, the contents of Mr Heng’s suitcase, which I have endeavoured to make some sense of.

Alex Wen, May,2011

前不久前往巴黎旅行時， 住在一個叫Montmartre的城區里， 酒店旁邊有個小酒吧， 老闆叫Guy，是一位友好的老男人，他給了我一個破舊的小旅行箱。 小小的箱子裡裝滿着照片和一些亂七八糟的攝影工具，這些東西都是屬於一位叫 恆先生的攝影師，小名叫赤赤。 據說這個小箱子是多年以前一位漂亮而神祕的女子留下來的，她自稱認識恆先生。恆先生所位於Rue Gabrielle的住所和工作室被大火燒燬後，他的失蹤更讓人們莫名其妙起來。 只有一些燒焦了的照片和日記本在大火後遺留下來，我頓時被這些迷人並且帶有憂傷氛圍的照片深深地吸引着，看着他們我彷彿能到以前恆先生的生活。 我對赤赤的了解並不多， 只知道他是一名攝影師，在70年代時因為文化大革命的動亂而逃離中 國。酒吧老闆Guy還跟我說過，恆先生是酒吧的常客，他非常安靜，就好像一直生活在自己的世界裡面，但偶爾還是有一些漂亮女子相伴。我猜想那些一定是出現在恆先生照片里的女人。 我並不知道她們是誰，但我覺得她們一定都是赤赤生命中重要的人。我相信恒先生的世界和他的精神是美的，也希望你通过这本书去感受他的美。

溫峻暉， 5月.2011年

This book cannot be finished without all your help.

my familymy classmatesAndy StarkLorna McparlandJianzhen WuEffye ChanXiaochen ChuWalter HamiltonEda liKirstin GribbinRachel LouiseXiaoling ZhuangMeiyan XuMuyan Gao Stepfania ChoiEllie StephensonRobyn HamiltonSuzanne SmithKaty WattEmily de valeEmily fish morrison

By Alexwen, 2011, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, UK