XU HONGXIANG, ZHAI LIANG

A new night is imminent, yet the old dusk still lingers heavily, reluctant to depart. In After Dark, Haruki Murakami employs a third-person perspective to unfold two parallel narrative threads across seven hours spanning day and night, capturing the secrecy and solitude concealed within shifting light and shadow. Similarly, through their respective modes of observation and pictorial rhythm, Zhai Liang and Xu Hongxiang construct parallel narratives that resonate despite their divergent paths. Their perceptions of quotidian landscapes subtly emerge within space, murmuring in quiet dialogue. Their practices preserve a lingering warmth of passing moments, allowing those faint and submerged elements hidden beneath experience to reappear. Within the elusive yet inevitable fissure between “day” and “night,” these fragments become enclaves for perception itself.