Heng DUAN Am I a Tree?
2024-2025 Spéos x Magnum Creative Documentary & Photojournalism
LET’S BE LIKE BROOKS RAIN & FEELINGS
© HENG DUAN
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ALBERTO CAEIRO The Keeper of Sheep
SIMPLE
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CALM, TREES
AM I A TREE? ‘IF THINGS ARE WHAT THEY APPEAR
These photographs embrace the act of seeing. Like the warmth of the sun or the scent of earth after rain, trees need no explanation. The images invite the viewer to pause, to observe, and to let sensation take precedence over thought. In doing so, they ask: What if this is enough? What if simply seeing, simply feeling, is the deepest understanding of all? The sequence does not follow a strict narrative but unfolds through different ways of seeing trees, shaped by variations in degrees of focus, retouching, form and presence. Some remain untouched in their natural state; others dissolve into abstraction, becoming echoes of wind, whispers
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Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep, Poem 39 (Translated by Richard Zenith)
Some people observe the world to analyse it, to understand it; others observe simply to feel. I belong to the latter. This project is not about answering a question but about experiencing presence — about seeing trees, not as symbols, but as they are. The project is deeply influenced by Alberto Caeiro, the heteronym of Fernando Pessoa. Caeiro wrote,
TO BE, WHY QUESTION THEM?’
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This philosophy runs through the heart of the series. The trees in these images are not metaphors for endurance, time or transformation; they simply exist. And yet, in their presence, something is revealed — not in what they represent, but in how they are perceived.
To see a tree is to experience it. To feel its presence in light and wind is enough. There is no need to assign meaning, to analyse. So the question remains: Am I a tree? Or is it enough simply to exist, to breathe, and to know that in this moment we are here? 005
‘IF THINGS ARE WHAT THEY APPEAR
TO BE, WHY QUESTION THEM?’
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KOMOREBI
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MOON AMONG
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SHRUBS SHRUBS
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What if this is enough? What if simply seeing, simply feeling, is the deepest understanding of all?
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Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep, Poem 39 (Translated by Richard Zenith)
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THE EYE OF SILENCE
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I’m not yet brave enough to open my heart for dissection, so the tree stands in, always there, mostly unnoticed, offering calm to any hand that lingers.
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And whenever ‘Setting Sun’ plays, it takes me back to those solitary walks where bark and silence first made room for love – and for myself. 043
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© HENG DUAN
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hengduanfr@gmail.com hengduanphoto.com IG : @ wfffawdwdw
HENG DUAN
is a Chinese photographer whose work explores stillness, uncertainty, and the poetic traces of everyday life. Blending film and digital processes, she seeks a visual language that invites imagination rather than explanation. Influenced by surrealism, literature, and visual art, her images often drift between the factual and the ambiguous—favouring intuition, transformation, and abstraction over fixed meaning. Her practice is grounded in quiet observation and a sensitivity to how images can dislocate or dissolve time. She continues to explore how experimental processes might further destabilise the image and expand its emotional and imaginative reach. Currently based in France and China.
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