Faculty of Art

Criticism and Curatorial Practice

Shanwei Fu

Shanwei’s Journal: A Flâneur in Toronto

Shanwei’s Journal: A Flâneur in Toronto is a visual journal, a handmade notebook and a documentation collection.

“Shanwei’s Journal: A Flâneur in Toronto captures what I have seen in eight months of my life in Toronto, including my wandering thoughts and photographs taken from different spots. I started with Posthumanism readings and brought thoughts from Chinese philosophy, the poetry of F. Pessoa and Robert Bly, and The Rings of Saturn; I was also influenced by TV series like The Midnight Gospel, How To with John Wilson and films by François Ozon. Taking the Posthumanism studies of humanity and power as inspiration, I gradually converged from the past and future to the present, associated and defined my persona as Flâneur in writing. The journal expresses and explores my living conditions in an urban context. I write down my sentiments about life and communicate with myself in Toronto’s landscape. For me, it is a work in dialogue with the contemporary, linking my history, memory, and imagination with others and the external world through different spots in the city, and the dynamic flowing of body and thoughts. The point of my research method is to stay present, interact with space, be keen, keep thinking, and discover the world’s differences.”