Li Li Ren

The World Forgetting, by the World Forgot

26 January - 02 March 2024

Bathing, compact whooshes, ripples of water when I move, watching the steam take shape, small bubbled clouds dispersing sweat and toxins and stress. Then there is earth cracking, crevices releasing lovers, demons, ageless, aged and barely born. In that vast expanse between our souls, bodies crawl endlessly to reach junctions west of here, where suns set. Here, there are ghosts, and we will remember them. I’ll cry ten times over before the day is done, huddled round, listening to you. You say my universe holds no bounds, intertwining with yours, tickling its way along your skin. We are parched, cotton wool tongue touching roof of mouth. It is so strange the way my heart feels heavy when thinking about the centuries of us, standing, laughing, dying, our spirits moving in weighted mountain boots across urban deserts. And every time David Attenborough motions, a new behaviour is born, wheeled out; a reminder of the world forgetting, by the world forgot, blanched and bleached and ashen, snapshot and amplified.