SUNGUAIWU  孙怪悟
The Re-advanture of Pankun  小庞的重新冒险
2025
Moving Image

“The Adventures of Pan and James” was a popular animal variety show featuring a chimpanzee named Pan (also affectionately known as Pankun)) and a bulldog named James, who tackled a range of challenges together. The program enjoyed enormous success, and Pan, in particular, became an iconic animal celebrity, celebrated for his remarkable intelligence and human-like behavior. But at the age of eleven, Pan was forced into retirement after attacking an intern during a performance. He was sent to a zoo, where—having been raised as a human—he struggled to adjust to life among his own kind, exhibiting intense signs of distress.

Pan had lived an extraordinary life, yet the moment he appeared to lose control, it was all stripped away. The show’s “narrative of happiness” may have been staged for the audience’s pleasure—but for Pan, it was reality.In this work, I designed a modular, transformable chimpanzee-inspired camera rig to simulate Pan’s point of view. I selected several “happy moments” from the original program and meticulously recreated the characters, costumes, and props. These scenes were re-shot from Pan’s subjective perspective and presented alongside footage from the original show, offering a mirrored encounter between fiction and experience.


《狗狗猩猩大冒险》是部动物综艺，主角黑猩猩小庞（也被昵称为庞君）与斗牛犬詹姆士需要挑战并完成各种任务，该节目曾经获得了巨大的成功。特别是小庞，因其高超的智慧和拟人的行为成为了历史上代表性的动物明星。可在11岁那年，由于演出时攻击了实习生，小庞被迫退役，被关进了动物园。因为从小被当做人类训练，它难以融入同类并呈现出强烈的不适。

小庞经历过丰富多彩的生命体验，然而当表现出失控后，一切都被瞬间剥夺。节目里的“幸福叙事”或许只是一场用以满足观众的戏，可对身处其中的小庞来说却是它的真实。在本作品中，我参照小庞的特征，设计了一款可拆解、多形态的猩猩样式摄影架，用以模拟其视角。而后挑选出了原节目里的多个幸福时刻，尽力复现其中的角色和服装道具，以小庞的主观视角重新拍摄了这些片段，并与节目原片并置展映。
 We long to connect with animals through empathy, yet such empathy inevitably turns into control. From the perspective of a chimpanzee, actions we interpret as affectionate—stroking the head, shaking hands, giving hugs—may in fact feel like acts of dominance from a more powerful species: humans. The narrative of animal cuteness often conceals disciplinary violence, and the process of anthropomorphizing is frequently a form of control enacted in the name of “empathy.”

This human-centered upbringing inevitably leaves a profound psychological impact on Pan. We impose human emotional narratives onto animal behavior without ever truly listening to them—or accepting them as they are. These cherished interactions with others were perhaps nothing more than a dream, dreamt by a chimpanzee who was once made to live as a little human named Pan.


我们渴望通过共情与动物建立联系，但这种共情最终不可避免地演变为控制。在黑猩猩的视角中，那些被视为表达爱意的行为——如摸头、握手、拥抱，可能更像是来自强大物种（人类）的压迫性举动。而对动物的可爱叙事或许暗含规训暴力，拟人化的过程也往往是以“共情”的名义实施的控制。这种以人类为中心的成长环境必然会对小庞产生深层心理影响，我们强行将动物行为纳入人类的情感叙事，却未曾真正倾听它们的声音，也没有接纳真正的它们。这些曾经与他人的美好互动，只是某只黑猩猩做的一场身为人类小庞的梦而已。


Since the costumes and props featured in the video are a crucial part of the work, they need to be exhibited alongside the footage. I decided to build a tall structure to display all these objects. Thus, I designed this display stand, with its frame densely covered in the costumes and props we created.

This installation also resembles Pan’s life—once surrounded by love and attention, now living in solitude within a cage. Amid the noise of the museum, it quietly occupies the top floor, its lonely figure bathed in light.


因为影像中服装和道具的制作是作品重要的工作，需要与视频同时展出。我就考虑做一个较高的架子，来安置所有物件。于是设计了这款展架，架子主体上布满了我们制作的服装道具。这个装置也仿佛小庞的一生，曾经被人环绕着爱着，如今却孤独的生活在笼中。在嘈杂的美术馆中，它安静的处于顶楼，寂寞的身影随着光线洒落。

© Sun Guaiwu