SNJYRB No.118#

Swallow Rock (Yanzi Ji) used to be a site prone to suicide incidents before the completion of Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge . People who wanted to commit suicide would sit on the railing and then fall into Yangtze River on their back. So there used to be a saying popular in Nanjing , back in the river, life in the heaven. Before the Anti-Japanese War, two wooden tablets saying Have a second thought and Don't die were erected at Swallow Rock by renowned educationist Tao Xingzhi. The two tablets were widely regarded as admonishment tablets. Qiu Zhijie has copied Mr. Tao's handwriting onto xylograph and printed a batch of calligraphy exercise books according to the xylograph. These calligraphy exercise books are given to people persuaded out of committing suicide and to volunteers. They are asked to trace the model characters, which is a part of the recovery therapy.

Here in the exhibition room,a video shows the process of the artist rubbing the admonishment tablets with a pencil. The text of Have a second thought and Don't die appear little by little, with the different tourist's speaks on suicide while they viewing this admonishment tablets.

Another video documents how the suicides and volunteers use theese calligraphy exercise papers.

Calligraphy pieces wrote by the suicides and volunteers, with the woodcut board also show in the installation.