这个项目创作于2020年年初,当时我居住在澳大利亚墨尔本的Royal Park 附近,这是一个有着很多球场和草地的城市公园,墨尔本动物园就在公园的另一侧。当Covid-19疫情发生时,公园被关闭,墨尔本动物园也开始限制参观人数,在周围的路口打出巨大的广告牌,通告动物园的门票数量。自疫情稍有缓解之后,动物园的门票便长时间处于售罄的状态。
而与此同时,在Royal Park空荡的球场和草地上,越来越多的鹦鹉迁徙至此,快速占据了路边的桉树,它们以球场的草皮为食物,在清晨和傍晚吵闹着成群结队地穿过城市。路人很少注意它们,早已习惯这些鹦鹉作为城市的背景。
“Zoo Tickets Sold Out”的拍摄围绕着Royal Park这一个小区域,呈现了公园,球场作为人类中心主义下的自然拟像是如何再次被“野性”所占领,以及公园周边这些矛盾的风景是如何再现了在紧急状态之下人类个体、城市空间与自然界中的病毒,动植物之间反复层叠的纠缠状态。
This project was created at the beginning of 2020, at that time I was living near Royal Park in Melbourne, Australia, a city park with golf courses, rugby fields and grasslands, with the Melbourne Zoo located on the other side of the park. When the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, the park was closed, and the Melbourne Zoo began to limit the number of visitors, placing huge billboards at the surrounding intersections to announce the number of available zoo tickets. Since the pandemic slightly eased, the zoo tickets have been sold out for a long time.
Meanwhile, on the empty sports fields and grasslands of Royal Park, more and more parrots migrated here, quickly occupying the eucalyptus trees by the roadside. They fed on the turf of the sports fields, noisily moving in flocks through the city at dawn and dusk. Passersby paid little attention to them, having long been accustomed to these parrots as a backdrop of the city.
The project revolves around the small area of Royal Park, presenting how the park and sports fields, as natural simulacra under anthropocentrism, are once again occupied by “wildness”, and how the contradictory landscapes around the park reflect the entanglement between human individuals, urban spaces, and the natural world of viruses and flora and fauna in a state of emergency.