In a moment of confusion and anxiety, Liu Yujia made a long journey deep into Karamay, Xinjiang. In a place in the Gobi Desert far from the ocean, she experienced something pelagic. The exploited land had never previously opened itself to humans, and the transported time had always returned to its origins. Travelers who come to this place are forced to remain static and unchanged. In her video work, Liu depicts a landscape that reflects her inner world. The piece takes us on a long voyage; it is the key to an Anywhere Door that leads to imagined landscapes. Perhaps, for Liu, the color black is an underground river of her private moods, and for viewers, black is a mineral vein of the layered imagination of countless people.

ArtWorld (AW): Can you tell us a bit about your life and education from childhood onward?

Liu Yujia (LYJ): I liked painting since I was a small child, but my score on the art academy entrance examinations wasn’t high enough to get into the Oil Painting Department. As a result, I did my undergraduate studies in the Graphic Art Department at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. After I graduated, I went to the UK and did my master’s degree at the London College of Communication at the University of the Arts London. After finishing my master’s and returning to China, I didn’t go into design; I worked in the art industry for two years. I had just turned 30, and I was really confused and anxious. I realized that I needed to do what I wanted to do, so I quit my job and started to make my own work.

AW: Before traveling to Karamay in 2015 to shoot Black Ocean (2016), your work wasn’t connected to a particular region. Why did you want to work on western China? What influenced you?

LYJ: Before making Black Ocean, I had done some photography and a few videos. My work generally came from my own interests, such as a novel or an oil painting I liked, or simply weaving together things I imagined. My previous video works were all shot in front of sets in a studio, and I think that my work from that time was intended to satisfy my personal curiosity. Looking back, these works do not directly connect with reality or the outside world. I was often unsure about what the work actually meant to me. Even today, I still think about how I should resolve this issue. I saw something once in an interview, and I forget who the interview was with, but he said, “For some artists, creating art is a difficulty that must be overcome.” At first, I didn’t have a lot of personal experience with this, but later, I had more of a connection to it.

When I went to Xinjiang to shoot Black Ocean, I wasn’t thinking about the concepts of western China or the borderlands. Personally, I had to go there. I had to go to an entirely unfamiliar world that was distant from my own reality; I had to walk toward a vast horizon that I could see, a place that did not feel part of any particular time. This desire was closely related to my mindset and living circumstances at the time. My starting point was very private and perceptual, and not a rational plan. I didn’t even really approach it from an artistic perspective. By visiting Karamay and experiencing the entire process from shooting to editing and finally completing the work, I was able to shake off my problems and resolve some of my own issues. This was very important for me.

AW: Why did you choose to shoot Black Ocean in Karamay and present this place as a strange world? Where specifically did you shoot?

LYJ: I have always been very interested in the concept of landscape. Whether Eastern or Western, humans invest emotion in landscapes. They are no longer seen as our homes; they are more like grand backdrops that appear, for our enjoyment, in poetry, literature, painting, and film. When I said that I was looking out over the landscape, you would find it hard to imagine what I was seeing, so landscape is abstract. If it was just the Gobi Desert and the hills, then it would simply be nature in its original state—it wouldn’t be a landscape. Landscapes need to have a human dimension. Landscape is only a kind of “secondary nature” produced through human practices and activities. I didn’t want to go somewhere that was purely natural, because the works made there could become lyrical and scenic. I chose Karamay not simply because it had complex landforms that interested me; it also had a large swathe of human-influenced landscape engulfed by a natural one. As everyone knows, the area where I was shooting is home to massive oil wells built on the Gobi Desert and the alkali soil band, so there is a lot of conflict and instability—there are so many layers. On the other hand, the area is heavily surveilled. For regional and political reasons, no one besides the workers are permitted to enter. It was really mysterious, and I really wanted to go there and explore the place. Due to some fortunate external factors, I received a permit to shoot, so that I could work freely there as an internal photographer.

I shot the piece in Baijiantan, Orku, and Dushanzi Districts in Karamay, as well as the Kumtag Desert and the Dabancheng Wind Farm.