The Last Step of Touch Down explores China’s history of adopting foreign technologies during Mao’s regime. The “last step” refers to the moment when foreign delegations disembark from the plane and make contact with foreign soil. This symbolic moment has always been documented and is seen as a key point in the narrative structure and a visualized metaphor.

By focusing on two particular historical periods – the first Five-Year Plan from 1953 to 1957, guided by the Soviet Union, and the technology transfer from the West to China that began after Nixon’s visit in 1972 – the work emphasizes how civil aviation and media technology, which played important roles in the subsequent globalization process, were introduced into China through diplomatic events. By weaving together facts from multiple sources, historical representations, and individual testimonies, the work argues how the ideology in technology spread and affected every stratum of China’s society in a top-down manner, resulting in the creation of new elites who employed these novel technologies, implying that China’s transformation after Mao was not political but rather technological.

降落的最後一步”，是指人從飛機上走下舷梯，踏上其他國家領土的第一步。它既作為實際意義上降落完成的最後一步，同時作為象征意義上外交關系開始的第一步。這一瞬間經常被賦予了重要的政治含義，並且總會被攝影機記錄下來。

作品《降落的最後一步》呈現了從1950年到1972年期間的一系列領導人、大使、出訪團隊從飛機上走下的影像片段，並從這一”走下”的動作延伸至當時冷戰背景下中國的政治外交和技術引進的歷史。作品涵蓋兩個中國集中接受國外技術的兩個歷史時期：從1953到1957年第一個五年計劃時期全盤接受蘇聯的對華技術援助；以及1972年尼克松訪華前後，在“聯華制蘇”背景下英美兩國對中國的技術轉移。作品側重於展現此後在全球化進程中扮演著重要角色的兩種技術一一民用航空技術和信息媒介技術被引進至中國的過程，以及這一過程對持有這些技術的中國人員所留下的痕跡。

Zheng Yuan lives and works in Beijing. He received his master’s degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015. Working primarily in time-based media, Zheng often operates at the intersection of fiction, documentary, and investigative research. His work focuses on the relationships between identity and value systems within different historical, social, and political conditions. In 2017, he began the “China Northwest Airlines” project, an attempt to process the history of China’s recent economic transfonnBtion through the prism of the civil aviation industry, in particular the story of a failed airline based in his home region of China’s northwest.

His recent solo exhibitions include Forward, Backward, Madeln Gallery, Shanghai, 2020; Up in the Air, Taikang Space, Beijing, 2017. Group exhibitions and screening include The Future is Here, Are You Coming?, University of Chicago, Chicago, 2022; E-Flux Screening roorn, New York, 2022; Between Sci-fi and illusory, MAXXI Museum, Rome, 2022; Future Tense: Microcinema event, War hoi Museum, Pittsburgh, 2022; Double Vision, Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts, Hong Kong, 2022; Diriyah Biennale, Riyadh, 2021; A Long Hello, UCCA, Beijing, 2020; UN/ CONVENTIONAL: OCAT x KADIST Emerging Media Artist Exhibition, OCAT Shanghai, Shanghai, 2020; The Mesh, chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai, 2019; OFFLINE BROWSER – The 6th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition, Hong-gah Museum, Taipei, 2018; New Metallurgists,Stoschek Collection, Dusseldo戊 2018. “Long March Project – Building Code Violations III Special Economic Zone’: Long March Space, Beijing, 2018. His works are also screened at film festivals and online platforms, including Visions du Reel, 2021; Arkipel Festival, 2021; Crashing into the Future, e-flux Artist Cinemas, online, 2021; Hasty Falling Time, 5th floor, Centre d’Art Contemporain Geneve, online, 2020; Out of Blueprints, Serpentine Galleries x NOWNESS, online, 2020; International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 2019; Kasseler Dokfest, 2019; 25 FPS Festival, 2019; Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2017. He was awarded the Jury Award at the 8th Huayu Youth Award 2020.