Stemming in part from his stint as art editor at the Beijing Youth Daily, Wang Youshen is fascinated by media in its dual contexts, within the worlds of reportage and publishing on one hand and as an agent of artistic expression on the other. In two 1993 projects, Wang variously covered part of the Great Wall with newspaper and reprinted an entire journal issue on textile, from which he fabricated curtains, linens, and clothing. Hung from windows of a building overlooking Tiananmen Square, the curtains symbolized the State’s attempts to cover up the 1989 attacks on protesting students. Equally political, Wang’s photographic series “Washing” (2003) obscures parts of two found photographs depicting elements of the 1941 incident in which Japanese forces burned alive thousands of Chinese in Datong, sparking reflection on symbolic cleansing and its capacity to serve as catharsis or deliberate amnesia.