A Child Already Knows

A Child Already Knows is a short film that describes a child’s retelling of an escape from Shanghai disguised as a family vacation through the south. Half-remembered scenes of a historical cusp are recalled alongside a montage of appropriated early Mao-era children’s animations of the same era. The work assembles fragmentary memories and images that must be conjured through the mind, in lieu of historical reenactments too costly to make and made impossible in a place of no return. While children’s stories often expound a moral tale, A Child Already Knows presents a child as protagonist caught in complex and ambiguous retelling. Such scenes of Shanghai during the Cold War are harder to pin down, sometimes unsettling. The child becomes increasingly aware of the world of adult secrets. A television is flickering. Train sounds whir.

Originally shown at Maxwell Graham Gallery in New York on a CRT monitor in 4:3––meant to invoke the relationship between the child and the television as a metaphor for attachment––the film is meant to be shown in the cinema in 16:9, drawing out the invisible cinematic image pulsing between broadcast and film formats. The image quality degrades, marking its excessive circulation.

Available for educational use. Please contact VDB for screening and exhibition requests.