Red Dolls
THE MAP SERIES
THE MAP SERIES
THE MAP SERIES
Ran Zhou
RAN ZHOU

The Big and the Only Tragedy is Death Itself and That is It
Mixed-media installation (39 buckets, flowers, boxed), 3m x 0.7m x 1.2m, 2019
In October 2019, 39 people were found dead in a refrigerated trailer in southeastern England, which was a tragedy involving migrants and labourers being smuggled across Europe. The suspicion, discussion, and argument surrounding the topic of illegal migration and its history keep the public opinions in a state of ferment.
Flowers are empathy. Candles are empathy. But the slogans turned the dead bodies into arguments. Nationalism, national border and migrations, and racial problems… while these readymade frameworks pull back and forth, it seems that we cannot see this tragedy without frameworks.
Dead people cannot speak. We never know what they were thinking. There is no voice from them from the very beginning to the end. Everyone’s story is different and they are individuals with their own names – not just a general “group,” not a monument, not victims. They are not killed by any ideology and they did not die for anything or as evidence of anything. The big and the only tragedy is they died as a person and that is it.



The Big and the Only Tragedy is Death Itself and That is It
Mixed-media installation (details), 3m x 0.7m x 1.2m, 2019
