Zheng Yuan
Dream Delivery
Materials : Single-Channel 4K Video, color, sound
Year : 2018
An exhausted delivery rider sprawled on the bench of a roadside park and fell asleep safe and sound. In the dream composed of a long take, laborers gathered together in a Shanzhai park in the desert where dynamic riders became static “statues,” forming a contrast with the speed and efficiency they pursued inexhaustibly around the clock. The all-star lineup of contemporary laborers revealed the other side of the Chinese economic miracle: In an increasingly homogeneous urban life infused with technology and wealth, new kinds of labor and social exploitation surface — byproducts of society’s never-ending mobility and a world of speed without rest, sleep has become a costly risk for these mobile people. In surreal and extremely realistic dreams, the artist made an attempt to capture the elements of fatigue and anxiety in this era — ceaseless mobility day-to-day is frozen in the virtual world, while unremembered faces in real life deserve close-ups in imaginary dreams.