Video Out

Movements East-West

Movements East—West, the third in Ma’s Xin Lu project, explores histories of movement—both in the physical movement of travel, and in revolutionary movements for political and social change. This experimental video is structured as a composite timeline of sixty dates and places, starting in 1841 and ending in 2001. In this chronology, significant dates in Ma's personal and family history mingle and intersect with world historical events, showing the larger social and political forces behind his migrations. Ma's life experiences are contextualized by events including the Prodemocracy demonstrations in China; AIDS activism in the U.S.; the Asian American, Gay Liberation, and Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s and '70s.  Archival images of these marches and demonstrations are combined with footage Ma shot during his travels in China, Europe, and the U.S.  These fluctuations in time and space recreate an uncanny sensation, most often experienced while traveling, when the past, present, and future all seemed visible in the same instant.