Walking Away

   《步行逃跑》
    Pages: 40
    Size: 11 x 18.5 cm
    First Printing Date: March 2024
    Language: Chinese, English
    Edition: 30 Copies
    Binding: Saddle-stitched



Walking Away is a photobook made by multimedia artist Song Lu during her art residency on the reclaimed land of Haidian Island. She repeatedly walked along a road leading to the seaside, where the color of green, blue, yellow, black, and white, constituted her entire life before summer arrived. The photobook records leisurely residents, wreckage from accidents, winter fireworks, foggy evenings, local fishing method, as well as traces of plants and insects through photography.

Meanwhile, each photobook copy contains different items that Song Lu found from Haidian Island, including the 2014 Guizhou Daily, the 2024 Spring Festival fireworks announcement in Haikou City, black-and-white film negatives not showed in the photo zine, snail shells collected by her grandmother, bird feathers, and plants, such as Duranta erecta, Red Osmanthus, Red Powderpuff, Garden corton, Hibiscus, Japanese laurel, Ti, Shameplant, Harebell, Aphelandra, Chinese ixora, Natal grass, and aerial roots of banyan tree. She temporarily preserved the plants using a lamination process. When the photo zine are delivered to collectors, some of the plants will change gradually over time, fading away from their original colors. Due to international transportation restrictions, versions containing plant specimens cannot be exhibited overseas.

"Walking Away" is completed in the spring of 2024 before the operation custom closure of the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port in China.