Purple Thorn
2025
Photography
Kinmen, Taiwan
Thorns at night,
puncturing skin.
The smell of blood,
is sea.
Armors ambushing under sand,
Eyes on their back, dark
and black,
telling every stupidity in me,
accusing every neon color.
Life of thousands, millions years,
Space of 3 by 3,
Do time and space equal?
Freedom means death,
Preservation means confinement.
The history of this island opened its mouth,
all I see in deep, is purple.
Swirling up, purple morning glories,
Coastlines, you occupied arbitrarily.
sliding out of my eyes,
half second.
Blue tears glow,
coming with waves,
half second.
But human memory lasts.
“My body remembered that color,”
she said to me.
Before I left,
I put some ambiguous questions
into the washing machine,
nothing comes out white.
An island of abandonment,
an island of new colors.
Purple Thorn
2025
Rauch DSR 120 matte paper, Recycled grey paper, Purple thread
20 × 25 cm
Artist: Jolie Zhilei Zhou
Project Supervisor: Andreas Langfeld
Project Administration: Jakub Wandzioch
Cover Design: maf-works.com
Layout and Binding: Jolie Zhilei Zhou
Printing Technical Support: Claudia Trekel, Heiko Diekmeier
Special thanks to: Thea Kleinhempel, Hosung Jang
Institutional Support: Academy of Media Arts CologneFirst print in Cologne, 2025
Inkjet print on 80g newpaper, publication, RISOgraph, plexiglass, brass components, chopping knife made by propoganda bombshell case (from the 20th century)
Purple Thorn, Exhibition View at Studio Foyer Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, Photoszene, 2025
About the project
Purple Thorn, Exhibition View at Deutschlandfunk, Kölner Kongress, 2026
About the project