Project: The Infinite Train

Taking wartime history as its point of departure, Infinite Train examines the Grand East‑Asia Trans‑Continental Railway, a massive infrastructure project proposed by the Japanese Empire in the early twentieth century, as the framework for its research methodology. This artistic research project focuses on Northeast Asia as the connecting link between the Eurasian continent. Against the backdrop of power struggles among nations over cross‑border railway networks and infrastructure, it explores human migratory mobility, forced labour in construction, emotional trauma, and the formation and transformation of identities. It seeks to recover voices and spirits that drifted through history, only to be ultimately forgotten or erased.

About the work

The Shadow Lands Yonder Distant Nowhere focuses on the history of the evacuation and repatriation of settler migrants during the 1930s and 1940s. It is a video and sound installation created collaboratively by Li Jizhong and Yūgo Isoji based on joint research.Affected by the global pandemic, the two artists were unable to conduct cross-border fieldwork in person. Instead, they overcame geographical constraints through an alternating research method: each conducted site investigations and interviews in their respective country on behalf of the other, before sharing materials and exchanging reflections. Following memoirs of former settler migrants — private histories from Yūgo Isoji’s distant relatives — the project revisits the repatriation routes of that era. Much like augmented reality, it evokes the overlap between present-day Northeast China and its past.Throughout their joint research and creation, stark divides in language, culture and historical backgrounds yielded displaced perspectives. After repeated negotiation and discussion, they came to recognise that these inherent differences were invaluable, mirroring the inherent complexity of history itself. As such, the work seeks to preserve diverse historical viewpoints and understandings of identity.

About the artist

Lee Kai Chung’s research‑based practice centres on history and historiography, systems and ideology. From his early career, Lee has observed the inadequacies of historical archive management in Hong Kong. He has since developed an art practice rooted in archival research. Through a series of research projects, socially engaged work and activist interventions, he responds to historical narratives, deploying individual practice as a transformation of politics and art. Beyond his personal artistic creation, he aims to build diverse public archives in the future. In 2017, Lee embarked on six interconnected research‑based projects themed around Migration. Grounded in the historical and social implications within a pan‑Asian context, the series explores human and material mobilities as well as geopolitical discourses. To embody the physical and mental conditions of migration first‑hand, Lee has been continuously travelling since 2020. The first instalment of this series, Restoration, Repair and Dilemma (2017–19), examines the material and ideological transformations of public statues in Hong Kong. The second, Narrow Passage to the Deep Sea (2019–20), addresses the forced displacement of residents across Hong Kong and Guangdong Province during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, which culminated in the Nan Shitou Incident. Subsequent projects include: Part III: Cinema of Exile (2020–ongoing); Part IV: Infinite Train (2021–ongoing); Part V: Acacia Park (TBC); Part VI: Low‑Flying Southern Swallow (2020–30). Since 2022, this body of work has also been presented in the form of a public archive.