Clink on the Moor (Chink on the Moor) is a short film that documents me, a Chinese immigrant who only came to the UK when he was 18, going around the idyllic Dartmoor and shaking a drying rack in nature, as if shaking a metal gate. The drying rack makes clinking sounds in the wild, as I shake it back and forth while sitting on a rock, on a hilltop, in a shallow river stream, etc. The process, along with the “gate” that doesn’t serve a purpose in the open fields, represents the complicated relationship that I have with this place: I shake the “gate” as I want to be let in and accepted, but simultaneously I also shake the “gate” as I feel trapped, and desperately want to get out of here. I want to feel belong, but I don’t know if I want to belong to a place where nothing makes me feel belong.
It all started with my visit to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum's Dartmoor exhibition. It was a good exhibition but none of the work really resonated with me, my experience with Devon. Standing there, I thought I should make something around Dartmoor that would resonate with me, someone who doesn't look like they would show up in Dartmoor. That's where I thought to myself jokingly, "Chink on the Moor". Nature is all accepting, with no barriers of entry - but it doesn’t always feel that way when you don’t look like a person who would usually visit that piece of land. It’s that feeling when you see someone greeting everyone they encounter on a hike, yet awkwardly lower their head when they see you as they’re not sure whether you speak English. Along with the repetitive metal clinking sounds, and the silliness of the futile act of shaking a drying rack in nature, a chink on the moor is out of place.
I've been dealing with a lot of immigration challenges. A fellow local artist said it was ridiculous that I had to fight to stay and work in "my own city". I cried when I saw that, because no one else has said that before. Most of the time I've been assumed as an international student instead of a local artist, and I've never even dared to think of Exeter as my own city despite my 6 years living here. If you're reading this, thank you, Hugh.
Also apparently Dartmoor used to have a very famous jail/clink.
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Special thanks: Adam Garratt
For being an absolute legend driving me to Dartmoor, listening to me yap in the car, and helping me with everything on the day despite the temperature and snow.
