I call you Nancy, 2012
Single channel video, collage
I imagine you as a girl, living joyfully, accompanied by the soft, breathy rhythm of life.
Mother once said she wanted to name you Hung Yin—probably three or four years younger than me. Father, too, always wished for a daughter. My little sister.
I call you Nancy. You’re like someone who went abroad to study and hasn’t yet returned. You often stay with different families, your footprints scattered across the world. You’re naturally quiet, a little eccentric, and so focused on your studies that you haven’t reached out to us. We, in turn, haven’t dared to disturb you.
How is your life? I search for you on the internet. Your image shifts endlessly—sometimes with long black hair, sometimes dyed golden, always draping over a face that changes with time and place. Your eyes, blue or hazel, framed by bold makeup or bare skin, shine with brilliance. You live in a land of unpredictable weather, your clothing ever-changing, unbound by seasons. You have a vast social circle, and your friends often upload photos with you. Through these glimpses, I’ve come to know you more.
Perhaps you won’t return. All I can do is gather fragments of you, compile them into an album—for Father, Mother, and me—as a way of remembering you. You must be twenty-five this year. These are the records of your growing up.
聽母親說，她想喚妳作紅嫣，大概比我少三四歲。爸爸，也一直想有個女兒，我的妹妹。
我喚妳作楠詩，妳好比到了海外留學還沒有回來；妳時常寄居在不同的家庭裡，足跡早就遍及世界；妳天性文靜，有點乖僻，又因為學業為重，故沒有主動聯絡我們，我們也未敢打擾妳。
妳 生活好嗎？我在互聯網上找尋妳。妳的身影千變萬化，偶爾帶有一頭黑色髮絲，間或染成一把長長的金髮，都低垂虛掩著隨時間與地域變換的俏臉；眼珠兒藍藍啡 啡，眼圈四周濃妝或素面都明艷照人；妳生活在天氣變化多端的國度，衣著多變而無分季節；妳有著龐大的生活圈子，身邊的朋友都將跟妳的合照存載到網上，我從 這側面認識了妳更多。
也許妳不再回來，我只能為妳將種種資料整理結集，製成相簿，好讓爸爸媽媽還有我，作為惦記妳的一種形式。妳今年該二十五歲了，這些，是妳的成長記錄。
“I Call You Nancy” is a project grounded in emotional projection. It begins with a single fact: more than twenty years ago, my mother terminated a pregnancy just over one month old. From this point, the work extends into a fictional narrative infused with genuine feeling. Its construction mirrors the layered, ambiguous nature of the Internet, where information is both real and unreal; what emerges from keyword searches becomes a distant‑yet‑intimate recollection shaped by coincidence and possibility.
The project is not only a personal expression of emotion. It also reflects on how my mother—living through the shifting values of the 1980s—understood the meaning of having children. In her generation and those before her, families commonly consisted of more than ten members. Children were valued as additional labor and as contributors to the continuity of a large, traditional household. As China’s social and economic landscape transformed, family size contracted to three or four, and children became vessels for parental aspirations and the promise of a better future. Within this transition, abortion became a quiet source of regret for some mothers of that era.
｢我喚妳作楠詩」是一個有關情緒投射的計劃。透過將媽媽二十多年前把一個多月的胎兒打掉的事實作延伸，構成一個被注入真實感情的虛構故事。這正好符合互聯網虛虛實實及資訊多樣的特性，以關鍵詞搜尋所得，就似被賦予一種既遠且近的追憶的可能及巧合。
本計劃不單是個人的情感抒發，更旨在藉著母親作為處於八十年代面對組織家庭價值轉變的處境，如何思考生兒育女的意義。由母親上一輩普遍以十多人為單位的家庭 規模，收窄到三至四人。兒女亦由作為單單勞動力的增加及符合形成傳統大家族的意識，轉向成父母親一輩能漸趨美好將來的寄望。當中，墮胎成了那個時代一些母 親的遺憾。
