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《童话》项目简介
2007年，中国艺术家 把1001名中国人带到德国卡塞尔六天，一同观摩、参与备受推崇的欧洲视觉艺术展览“第十二届卡塞尔文献展＂。这批游客共分为五组，在2007年6月12日至7月9日期间分批出发。这场资助1001名中国公民远赴国外（许多成员是首次出国）的盛事，让 和参加者得以共同探讨关于身份、记忆、关爱、梦想和文化交流契机的课题。
时至2011年， 、香港策展人林嘉敏及美国费城斯劳特基金会（Slought Foundation）的乐维朗（Aaron Levy）携手开展重访《童话》的研究项目。此项工作涵盖翻译、编存及策划展出艺术家在项目期间搜集的文献，其中大部分都是全球志愿工作者的努力成果。我们的原始材料是参与者的问卷和照片，以及 与参加者的访谈录像。我们尤为关注的是众多参与者的经历、回忆和体会，为此，我们正尝试联系所有参加者，以志该项目推出五周年。
本项目会涵盖“第十二届卡塞尔文献展＂的经历，并在过程中彰显一些重要的议题，例如提供艺术自由的空间，以及开展关于本土和全球形势的研究。本项目错综复杂，部分原因是其题材性质敏感，本网站的编改内容便是最佳的例证。着手推行《童话》项目之际，我们已意识到其过程本身将涉及反馈式的确认与整合；鉴于此项工作意义重大，所以这个环节实属必要，而且对当代艺术、艺术家及机构的处境也具有指标作用。
策展绪论
“童话＂既是一个词组，也是一个概念，而且与 其它作品一样，皆可引伸出多重涵义。德国的卡塞尔造就和孕育了格林兄弟编撰的童话故事。对于从未离开过家乡或出过国的工人、农民或乡下人来说，能坐上飞机到异国游历，这俨然就是一个当代的童话故事。旅居海外、出国旅游和移民，可以让人接触到另一个想象的国度或构筑世界的模式。游历不仅意味着要抽身离开祖国，更意味着被抽离了自身的文化、语言和身份，同样的道理亦适用于翻译。游历牵涉到大量与多重身份有关的探讨，它们常围绕着种族、家园和无家可归等议题展开。对于旅居海外、旅游和离乡别井的人来说，家再也不是一个封闭和熟悉的地方，它变成了一个四通八达的开放式交通网络：放眼四望，一切无始也无终，且再也无家可归。
许多海外侨民都渴望重返故国，好像这样方能在新的环境里安心定居。这种对家乡的思念，也是海外、边疆及跨国文学作品中的重要题材。对 来说，无论是旅居美国的岁月，或是其后为探望生病的父亲而返国的经历，均属于这一类型的叙述形式。
《童话》项目 (2011-) 的主要环节是 在2007进行的一系列访谈，他在过程中邀请受访者回答了一些简单的问题。这个网站展示了他们的答案，其内容对文化、种族和社会的普遍性，或有所认同，或有所质疑。本项目的重点之一，便是翻译这些文档及一些跨语言或跨文化的体验。于此，翻译成了另一种文化铭写与交流的方式。
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Project Overview
In 2007, Chinese artist initiated "Fairytale," in which 1001 Mainland Chinese People were invited to Kassel, Germany to view and participate in Documenta 12, a respected European visual art exhibition. The tourists were divided into five groups, each group traveling in succession between June 12th and July 9th 2007. The extraordinary event of 1001 Chinese citizens traveling outside of China, many for the first time, enabled and the participants to discuss questions concerning identity, memory, love, dreams and the possibility of cultural dialogue.
In 2011, , Hong Kong-based curator Melissa Lam, and Aaron Levy of the Philadelphia-based Slought Foundation, began collaborating on a research project revisiting Fairytale. This work involves translating, archiving, and curating documents that the artist collected over the course of the project, predominantly through a global volunteer network. Our primary materials are participant questionnaires, snapshots, and recorded interviews that conducted with the participants. Of particular interest to us are the experiences, memories, and understandings of these participants, who we would like to contact, on the fifth anniversary of the project.
The project will encompass the encounters from Documenta 12 and foreground such issues as the potential for artistic freedom and conducting research in relation to local and global conditions. The complexities of this particular project is derived in part from the sensitivity of the subject matter, which is evidenced on this site as redacted text. We are working on the Fairytale Project with the understanding that the process itself will be reflexively acknowledged and incorporated as it develops. This seems necessary in terms of the significance of the work, and is indicative of the conditions of art, artists, and institutions in the contemporary environment.
Curatorial Overview
“Fairytale” operates both as a word and a concept, and like all of ’s works, instigates meaning on multiple levels. Kassel, Germany is the heart and birthplace of the fairytales authored by the Brothers Grimm. The ability for a laborer, farmer, or villager from the countryside who has never left his province or country to travel on an airplane to another country also acts as a contemporary fairytale. Diaspora, travel, and immigration into a different country allows one access to another realm--or worlding--of imagination. Travel, and by extension translation, does not just signify an out-of-country displacement but also an out-of-culture, out-of-language, and out-of-oneself experience. It deals extensively with pluralistic identities that revolve around issues of ethnicity, home, and homelessness. Diaspora, traveling, and leaving home suggests that home is no longer a closed and familiar place, rather an open system of crossroads. One finds that there is no beginning or end, and also no home to go back to.
In diasporic communities, there is often a desire to return to one's native land before one can begin to feel naturalized in one's new surroundings. This longing for home often acts as an anchor in diasporic, border, and transnational writing as well. For , his sojourn of years in the United States and his subsequent return to China because of his father's illness is part of that same narrative.
Central to Fairytale Project (2011-) are the interviews that conducted in 2007, in which he asked participants to respond to a series of simple questions. Their answers, as presented on this site, at times assert and interrogate the universality of culture, ethnicity, and society. This project revolves around the translation of these documents and experiences across other languages and cultures. In this way, translation becomes here another form of cultural inscription and exchange.
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