Window on the Metro Line A

Wang Zifan, Window on the Metro Line A

Oil on canvas, 172 cm x 191 cm, 2022.

Text: Wang Zifan

“The word ‘affect’ in Geographies of Feeling has much more meaning and weight for me than does the word ‘geography’. When I ruminate on my memories of the countries and cities I have lived in and survived throughout my twenty-six years of life, whether in my hometown or in distant Europe or North America; what appears in my mind is never a specific landmark, but the strong feeling and destructive impact of living in an unfamiliar place, as well as being surrounded by unknown people in an unfamiliar environment.

On a normal day in the spring of 2022, I finished work and waited for the train at the Metro Line A of the Rome Metro. At the Espana metro station, which is a very bustling place, I looked around at these strange faces. Their expressions were so different from mine; they were all speaking Italian but my native Chinese and everyday English were foreign languages. 

I suddenly realized that in the closed and dim space of the metro station, this place provided for my existence, had been compressed by the atmosphere of the crowd to only the size of this small floor tile I was standing on, and I lacked any weapon with which to tear through this barrier. The urge to tear this barrier down and the desire to speak and leave traces of my presence in this space was so strong and aggressive, like a prey trying to break through a circle of predators. This whole experience happened in the span of an instant.

I didn’t get on that train, and after seeing the red train full of people leaving, I went back to my studio. I painted the metro station and the metro windows in flowing brushstrokes along the tracks and the dynamics of the primer I had applied. This time I did not apply a whole white base over my canvas again, but left parts of the canvas to be exposed, as a small place to breathe and talk.”