Over seven days, filming for several hours each day at a different time of day, the camera was positioned at a fixed vantage point overlooking Wuyishan National Park, with Sancai Peak in the distance. The work begins at sunrise and concludes at sunset, with a slow pan across the landscape that ultimately comes to rest on the tea plantations terracing the hillside to the right.
The film is informed by classical Chinese ink painting, particularly the tradition of the “high mountain” landscape, in which time, memory, and the present coexist within a single spatial construction. Central to this tradition is the concept of vertical perspective, expressed by the term 高远 (gāo yuǎn) — often translated as “High Distance” or “The High Mountain” — which describes a mode of seeing that privileges elevation, depth, and temporal continuity over linear, single-point perspective.
Rather than documenting a site, the work explores duration, repetition, and shifting light as a means of engaging with a landscape shaped equally by geology, cultivation, and cultural history.
*Note: This is not the actual film. These sequences are a selection of 20 second segments with no transitions, excerpted from the original work.