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M+, Hong Kong. Gift of Wang Bing, 2019, © Shen Xin
On View
Mediatheque
Shen Xin 沈莘
Strongholds 據點
2016
Shen Xin’s Strongholds follows a pair of women as they visit Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland—the oldest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Europe, founded in 1967 by Chögyam Trungpa. Opening with the two women staging a dance performance in the monastery’s courtyard, the film proceeds through flashbacks and voiceovers to chart their travels, rehearsals, spiritual questionings, and tentative romance. The work’s understated approach quietly observes moments of both affection and awkwardness as the women strive to understand the complexities of enlightenment and love.
A hybrid of fiction and documentary, the narrative self-consciously gestures to technology as a structuring device. A camera drone accompanying the women acts as a participant-observer in the story, seemingly autonomous as it watches their interactions. Scattered throughout the film are texts drawn from internet message boards and chat rooms where strangers seek company and guidance in their questions about spiritual life. These lend a dimension of universality to the women’s story, placing it within a broader human struggle for meaning and connection.
A hybrid of fiction and documentary, the narrative self-consciously gestures to technology as a structuring device. A camera drone accompanying the women acts as a participant-observer in the story, seemingly autonomous as it watches their interactions. Scattered throughout the film are texts drawn from internet message boards and chat rooms where strangers seek company and guidance in their questions about spiritual life. These lend a dimension of universality to the women’s story, placing it within a broader human struggle for meaning and connection.
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