What does it mean to take up calligraphy in a fast-moving world where people often no longer recall the stroke order of unusual words, but can look them up on cellphones? How does it feel being alone, together, spending long hours training your body to write while slowly mulling over your life with others? Writing in Water follows two generations of calligraphy teachers, Wang Tongxing and Liu Lanbo, 王童性 刘兰波through the eyes of an American who learned to write with them, in Tuanjiehu Park, Beijing, where they practice on the plaza everyday. We encounter directly the funny, philosophically inclined teachers and the community of students, people who have been retired, left behind by China’s get-rich quick reforms. We see them together in the park and alone at home. With their students they connect past to present, master to pupil, friend to friend, making a community, making Chinese characters that slowly materialize, and that last long after the water has evanesced into air.

In Mandarin, English subtitles, 42 min.

Written and directed by Angela Zito; Camera by Angela Zito, Yu Jun, Lisa Erdman; Edited by Angela Zito; Zhu Lin, Lili Chin, Yang Rui.

Writing in Water took shape over several years, beginning in 2006, when I met Wang Tongxin and his teacher Liu Lanbo and began studying with them in their neighborhood in western Beijing. It is part of an ongoing project of thinking about the production of new senses of self through cultural expressions in public spaces (see Dogs and People and the Stiletto Project). A slide show below gives some sense of the park, and you can link to an essay about the production of the film here.

Mar 25, 2014 RAK Bunn Museum, Shanghai. With Q&A.