樹樁 / WHAT DOES THE TREE STUMP HOLD FOR ME? by Feifei Pan | China | 2025 

Duration: 00:09:56

This work is an act of performative thinking using the body as its medium. It originates from a specific moment of creation: while attempting to depict the imagery of a “mermaid,” the mind shifts toward a silent tree stump, triggering a series of fundamental inquiries about existence, connection, and meaning.

ARTIST, PERFORMER : Feifei Pan
Special thanks to photographer Li Ning.

CONTACTS / LINKS : https://feifeipan.cargo.site/ 

In the past, the roots of the stump were buried in the soil, constantly absorbing nutrients from the earth in darkness, enabling the visible trunk, leaves, and fruit to grow. Now, the once-hidden roots of the stump have been dug up and exposed to the light of day, yet the life of this tree has ended—its visible parts severed by an axe. Yet at this moment, I attempt to let my legs bear and re-enact that visible part (the trunk, leaves, fruit). Thus, the stump becomes the “fish tail” lost in the Gobi Desert, conjuring the image of a “mermaid.”

Inspirations
As I merged with the tree stump into a mermaid image, my mouth was stuffed with half a tomato, which I promptly spat out—like a cell division. Later, I expanded this action into a body-image installation: footage of dissecting a tomato coexisted in the same space with myself, the dissected specimen and sampling subject. I was both the person wielding the knife and the “cell” lying there being sliced. This dual identity created an inescapable cycle of mutual gaze. When I dissected the tomato, I was dissecting that “seed sac” that had once filled my mouth—that is, dissecting myself. When I become the specimen, the seeds, gelatinous pulp, and chambered structure exposed from the tomato mirror my own bodily interior. My abdominal cavity, uterus, and vascular network form a biological connection with the tomato’s plant structure. Within this installation, subject and object blur; the human is no longer a pure agent but is instead redefined by their own actions, refilled by what they have expelled. Watching the tomato dissected on screen, I witness the internal structure of a world once within my mouth—the biological evidence of the “Mermaid-Stump” hybrid.

Artist statement
I create moving images, still images and theater works, using the body as the point of origin. In my practice, the body is not treated as a vessel for expression, but as the site, medium, and ultimate text in which creation occurs. I am interested in the inherent contradictions embodied by the body; it is both intimate and political, material while also reflecting the spirit, present in the here and now, yet marked by the absence of what has already passed. My work frequently focuses on boundaries, including those between body and space, self and the other, and inner sensation and external discipline. Within these fissures, I seek to identify a particular form of unnamed reality.

Bio
Feifei Pan is a filmmaker and visual artist based in Guangdong. Her work explores memory, identity, and emotional distance through intimate visual storytelling. Influenced by documentary and experimental cinema, she focuses on quiet human moments and atmospheric imagery. She has worked across short films, visual theater. Her works explore the tensions between body and space, self and other, and perception and discipline. She is currently developing projects that continue to investigate embodied experience through visual and performative forms.

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