A Diary under Wuhan Lockdown

Photograph, video, text, installation

2020.1.23-2020.3.28

Media Coverage and Exhibitions:

• March 2020: The IATC Hong Kong International Association of Theatre Critics website published Tan Tan’s article, “Forty-Three Days of Lockdown: Notes on Five Emotions.”

• April 2020: · “UNDER THE ROCK” Exhibition and Charity, The museum of creative minds, Shanghai

• April 2020: The Misplaced Women? project website in Germany published Tan Tan’s article, “Misplaced Self in a Misplaced City.”

• April 2020: The BCAF Youth 100 project by the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation (BCAF) published an interview with Tan Tan.

• May 2020: The Belgian weekly BRUZZ published an interview with Tan Tan titled “An Inside Look at the Wuhan Lockdown.”

• June 2020: The Newsletter of the Center for Performance and Media Studies at Ghent University, Belgium, introduced Tan Tan’s diary and related articles.

• June 2020: The online project Spaces of Inner Confinement in Mexico published an interview with Tan Tan.

• December 2020: The Canadian journal Critical Stages published Tan Tan’s article “Misplaced Self in a Misplaced City.”

• January 2021: The American journal Feminist Media Histories published an article “Life in-between Screens: The World, Two Meters Away” by Zhang Zhen, Jiang Jiehong, and Ellen Y. Chang, which mentions Tan Tan’s diary.

• March 2021:  “Beyond Words-Art and Healing” Art Exhibition, Wuhan Art Museum, March

This is a 66-day diary written by Tan Tan between January 23 and March 28, 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdown in Wuhan. It begins on the first day of the lockdown and ends when Wuhan’s external channels reopened.

Every day before noon, Tan Tan posted a diary on her “WeChat Moments” (a popular social platform in China), accompanied by a photo. The photo was taken daily from the same window in her home, showing the buildings across the lake—those of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, one of the epicenters of the pandemic.

This record is dedicated to preserving this unforgettable period and mourning those who have passed away.

This diary was not originally intended to be an artwork. However, during this extraordinary period, it was repeatedly reprinted and reported by both domestic and international media, and it has also been exhibited as an installation art piece.

Artist Statement

At the beginning of 2020, an unexpected pandemic struck Wuhan, China, and the world. Everyone went through an ordeal—both physically and mentally.

As a Wuhan native who often drifts between different cities and countries, I unexpectedly found myself trapped in Wuhan during the pandemic. Over more than two months, I witnessed my birthplace transform from a city filled with anguish to one that saw the light of day again. As a “useless” artist, I desperately wanted to do something, but the intense anxiety during the pandemic left me almost unable to create any art. The only thing I managed to keep up with was this online diary. It was not intended to be an artwork but rather a personal diary. Unexpectedly, it was reported and exhibited by various media and institutions in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, and Canada.

I don’t believe I have any position or authority to “represent” Wuhan. I am merely an ordinary person from Wuhan recording my emotional journey during the lockdown. Perhaps the reason it resonated with so many people is that they empathized with my feelings. Through these shared, personal emotions—joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness—we realize that humanity is one community when faced with a great disaster. Whether it’s the vast city of Wuhan or the small “me” by this window, both can become factors that impact the entire world overnight. Thus, the small view outside my window became a microcosm of the entire world in 2020—filled with a stillness that held both the struggle of the apocalypse and the hope of redemption. As I gazed out of that window day after day, I deeply felt that human actions are far less powerful than the changes in nature, like the weather or the seasons—we should stop being so arrogant.