Leah Zhang

Solar - Film - 24min - 2026

présenté dans le cadre de l'exposition Panorama 28 - Invisibles ?

A group of journalists and a film crew enter a mine built in the 1970s during the communist era. In the caverns, two films are being made simultaneously: one for the news report, the other for the artist. Underground, conversations revolve around work, clarity and the reconstruction of images, while the sounds of labour echo through the dust. Amidst the smoke and mist, the image becomes blurred, unstable, out of focus. How are we to interpret these images when we have always sought to represent the underground as a clear system of politics, property and industry? Through the never-ending history of underground image-making, starting in ancient times, who settled in the cave, and who ventured further in search of symbols? When the journalists come back up to the surface, in their camera, modernism, collectivism and spectres are found in the images.
This film is preferably watched in the cinema or in complete darkness.

Leah Zhang (born in Shandong, China, in 1992) lives and works between Amsterdam and Roubaix. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she completed a residency at De Ateliers in Amsterdam in 2024. Her work has been exhibited at Framer Framed in Amsterdam, the Times Museum in Guangzhou, and the Chisenhale Gallery in London.

Production


Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing — Twelve Oaks Film Art

Credits


› Scénario, réalisation : Leah Zhang
› Producteur : Clément Morelle, Jinglun Jia, Ruijing Xu
› Coproductrices : Haixia He, Jiawen Zhang, Jingyi Chen, Saiya Yu
› Interprétation : Fruit Lee, Kezhi Pan, Leah Zhang, Tongrui Nie, Wenming Zhang
› Image : Kezhi Pan, Leah Zhang, Wenming Zhang
› Montage image : Leah Zhang, Lou Dahlab, Mona Rossi
› Son : Fruit Lee
› Montage son : Dany Jalain, Wey Yinn Teo
› Mixage : Yannick Delmaire
› Vfx : Hugo Livet
› Accompagnement artistique : Sammy Baloji

Acknowledgments


12 Oaks Filmart, Wenming Zhang, Tongrui Nie, Hua Zhang, Jianxiu Wu, Guangye Sun, Tim Shao-Hung Teng, Ana Vaz, Can Unlü, Pedro Geraldo, Kieu Anh Phuong Nguyen, Luc Aureille, Fred Lai, Qidi Feng, Seiffel Thong, Madison de la Pierre, An Li, Wang Chun, Xiaoling Zhang, Qingwei Xie, Guan Huang, Odyssey Xiong, Haohua Zhang,and many more.