Longing for the homelands of our imagination
Responding to (Tending) (to) (Ta) by April Lin 林森
(Tending) (to) (Ta), 2021 (Film still)
(Tending) (to) (Ta) is a narrative-led speculative fiction film by interdisciplinary artist April Lin 林森. It is centred on the concept of tā – a sound in the Mandarin Chinese language which encompasses all third person pronouns and has, in Mainland China, been reclaimed by the genderqueer community as a neutral pronoun.
The plot follows the exchange of soul-searching letters between two protagonists who exist across different dimensions. One is a human living in London feeling lost and unfulfilled in a dead-end job, and trapped by societal expectations of gender and race. The other is a being that immerses themselves in nature but despite living what appears to be an idyllic life, is facing their own reckoning with their sense of purpose and self.
In the film our other-dimensional being explains that tā is anything and everything, symbolising the infinite essence of the universe – the pull in your gut, the swell in your chest, the soul behind your eyes, the wisdom in your bones and the whisper of the flowers. However, as pessimistically put by our human, in Western society, “instead of tā there are many myths – you have to make lots of money to protect yourself; you are either a man or a woman; being alone is being sad. The only thing that is actually sad is that I chose not to opt into this system in the first place.”
Over the course of the one-hour film, Lin 林 masterfully explores topics at the heart of the decolonisation movement that aims to uproot the damage of Western colonialism. By giving us the perspective of a being from another dimension who operates under entirely different rules, the film lays bare just how ridiculous societal understandings of racial hierarchy, gendered patriarchy and capitalism are. At one point our human protagonist attempts to relax and find meaning with a nature meditation, which ends up being a short-term fix because going on a nature walk will not sort out the systemic issues created by an exploitative labour market – no matter how much we’re made to think it will.
The many ways to love, the existential finality of death and understanding what it truly means to be human are questions that have plagued humanity for thousands of years. From the Aboriginal Dreamtime, Australian Aboriginal creation folklore describing how their ancestors created the land and people, to the Mesopatamian Epic of Gilgamesh, a 4000-year-old epic poem exploring themes of queer love, grief and divine vengeance, to the tales of the cunning spider Anansi in Ghanaian folklore – every civilisation throughout time has tried to define human nature.
And from the mythology and folklore that has shaped cultural history has grown fantasy and futurist genres, which merge powerful human belief with the very margins of our creativity to reimagine societal rules. Although several cultures globally have long had an ever-evolving gender-fluidity – from the two-spirit people of Indigenous North America to the Hijra community in the Indian subcontinent – there is now a rising movement of people in the West questioning what it means to be a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’. And beyond that, why many have to work in jobs that make us miserable every day simply to survive, and how we can find contentment in the fast pace of modern-day society.
But alongside mythology and folklore, there is also imagination. It may be because of our queerness, skin colour, class or all and more, that many of us grow up feeling unaccepted by society, and unable to find our place in the world. For us, imagination is where we can escape to, finding comfort exploring fictional worlds of our own creation.
There is a moment where our human asks the other being, “Is it normal to feel a sense of belonging for somewhere you have never been?” It’s a question that is felt by many diasporic communities displaced from their ancestral homelands. Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if the Indian subcontinent had never been colonised, and I wonder whether it’s truly possible to yearn for a place that has only existed in my imagination.
Lin 林 creates a world we can lose ourselves in, but unlike our two heroines, we must let go of this imaginary world when the film ends. But before it does, the two share a heartfelt embrace, and the words: “I don’t know where to go from here but I trust the paths will come to me. Before I knew everything I was going to do, yet I had no idea how to grasp anything the universe was gifting me.” It is a loving wake-up call to reclaim power over our destiny, even during times when we feel like just another cog in the machine.
