Size: 40.64 cm X 60.96 cm
Many cemeteries of Queens are something of mirrored cities to New York City. Across the East River, all kinds of gravestones and tombs erected on the hill like the miniaturized landscape of Manhattan skyscrapers. Compared to sleepless metropolis, this miniature city seems to fall into sleep forever. Such still is only occasionally interrupted by noise from surrounding freeways and several flying birds. While I pass between gravestones and look the skyscrapers of Manhattan emerging from the horizon, these familiar buildings’ shapes suddenly become strange to me. Sometimes, these gravestones before my eyes are mixed with buildings in the far. It’s hard to tell whether it is the top of gravestones or the top of skyscrapers. All urbanites finally will make their last one-way trip from a familiar city to another unfamiliar one. These two cities in front of me are situated in two different kinds of time and space, and they are divided by the boundary between life and death. However, they share some surprisingly similarity and uniformity to some extent.
遍布於紐約皇后區的墓園就像一座紐約的鏡像之城。從曼哈頓驅車半小時穿過東河，河岸右側不遠處形態各異的墓碑和墓室連綿不斷的擁擠在小山丘上的樣子像極了曼哈頓島上的摩天大樓群。與身處曼哈頓所感受到的喧鬧截然相反，這裡彷彿陷入了永恆的靜止。當漫步於墓群之中，只有偶爾飛過的野鳥和身後高架橋上不時傳來的鳴笛聲能夠短暫的打破寂靜。穿越這片墓地，地平線上凸起的樓群和身前錯落的墓碑的形狀接踵而至，我熟悉的城市風景線瞬間變得陌生起來。從這裡看曼哈頓處於絕對的靜止狀態。眼前閃爍的白色花崗岩墓碑與遠方微微泛光的玻璃、高聳的黑色十字架和帝國大廈的尖頂，它們彼此呼應，兩個城市在此融為一體。一瞬間我忘記了自己身處何處又來自何處。兩個截然對立的空間與時間在此被打通。每一個紐約客最終都會從“那裡”到“這裡”走完最後一次單向旅程。生者與死者的國度將紐約人一分為二。但二者的“城市”卻有著高度的一致性。