CUI YUXUAN 

Hauntology, Mourning, Land Melancholy

  1. Vestige of Hsinking, After the Illusion Fades 迷梦幻灭后
  2. Divided Spaces, Dissolved Orders
  3. Deconstruct the “Tools”
  4. Lost, Lost, Lost  失，失，失
  5. Wuchang五常, Wuchang无常
  6. I’ve Never Heard the Swan Song 我从未听过天鹅挽歌
  7. Deferred Echoes Inside the Bell 但余钟磬音
  8. Drawn in Captivity: Walking through H.J.D de Fremery’s sketches 囚中途绘

Space, Storytelling, Installation

  1. What you will  第十二夜
  2. Love Me Tender, Bite Me True 
  3. Trespass 飞（非）地烟花
  4. 溯流 Go Upstream
  5. Jiakong, Jiakong 
  6. -Borderline as Storyline- 

Info/Bio

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©2026 Cui Yuxuan

2022
 Photography, zine, video 14’ 44’’



On the second day of our trip to Kosovo, we unexpectedly lost our Dutch residence permit cards, which prevented us from returning to the Netherlands as planned. As holders of Chinese passports, we were facing illegal residence here, and the special geopolitical situation made it almost impossible for us to travel in the surrounding countries. So, in this lost land, we searched for our lost documents while also allowing ourselves to explore and wander through the city. The giant of former Yugoslavia is half silent and half noisy, with symbols of power and capital filling it. We negotiated with embassies, Chinese offices, and police stations, chatted with locals - veterans, drug dealers, taxi drivers, young students, war widows, the elderly, children - and encountered stray dogs on the streets. The moments in history that were once tightly closed gradually opened up to us.

When we finally realized we might never be able to retrieve those documents, we found that our situation and lives were gradually overlapping with those of the people of this land. We seemed to be on an isolated island, and our identities were also entering a "shelf life" of 15 days. 

"Lost" has many meanings in English: lost track, disappeared, missing, bewildered, confused, immersed, addicted... Each layer of meaning resonated with our situation at the time. We hope to present an experience of being lost and finding one's way again, of the constantly extended waiting, and of two "outsiders" intimately and intuitively exploring the post-socialist landscape.













     






         





   






Pristina, Pristine

When "pristine" was anglicized in the 16th century, 
people borrowed the meanings of "early" and "primitive" from the Latin "pristinus" 
and applied them to both the advisable and the indesirable. 
But there has long been a tendency among civilized people
to revere a simpler, purer past. 
The assumption is that things are better
when they are in their oldest or original state. 
Thus, "pristine" has been expanded to describe
the concept of an unspoiled, undamaged or uncontaminated state. 
Something unspoiled or uncontaminated can mean fresh and clean
in the sense of something just made, 
which explains how "pristine" can also mean 
"fresh and clean".

         






             


























                                                         




       







Installation View