Yixuan Xiao

Telephone Call

Telephone Call is a video installation that uses a landline telephone as a metaphor to explore themes of childhood memory, separation, and mediated communication. It expresses the affection between “presence” and “absence” in the parent-child relationships of China’s left-behind children since 2000. By combining archival audio with interactive visuals, the work intentionally invites viewers to reflect on how “absence” shapes identity and distorts expressions of family love.The work combines dual projection, vertically suspended tracing paper, and surround sound to construct an immersive spatial environment.

“This work originates from a reflection on the experience of left-behind children in China, particularly through a shared generational position between the artist and those depicted in Cun Xiao De Hai Zi, a documentary by Nengjie Jiang. It draws inspiration from a specific scene in the film in which a child answers a phone call but fails to recognize her mother’s voice. This moment becomes a point of emotional rupture, where voice—normally a marker of familiarity—no longer functions as a means of recognition.The installation uses the landline telephone as both a narrative and spatial trigger. It becomes a fragile interface between presence and absence, suggesting how communication technologies can simultaneously connect and distance individuals. The act of picking up the phone is reframed as a moment in which intimacy becomes mediated, delayed, and at times unrecognizable.Within the exhibition space, layers of tracing paper are suspended at varying heights and positions, functioning simultaneously as surfaces and barriers. The projections fragment across these layers, producing a shifting visual field that cannot be fully grasped from a single viewpoint. As viewers move through the installation, they encounter constantly reconfiguring relations between image, sound, and space, reflecting the instability of memory and connection.Rather than reconstructing a linear narrative, the work seeks to evoke a sensory and affective condition of disconnection within communication—where proximity does not necessarily produce understanding, and where even the simplest act of a phone call carries the weight of distance, time, and absence.”