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An animated imagination
生“动”的想象
On the first day of 2016, artist Yu Kun launched an experiment. She started making a motion graphicabout her daily life every day and posted it on her WeChat account under the name Yugongzi.
2016年的第一天，漫画家俞昆开始了一项实验：每天制作一个记录自己日常生活的动图，并以“愚公子”的名字发布在微信公众号上。
▲图源：新京报
Yu, 37, had recently returned to China after graduating from La Poudriere film school in France in 2015. Consequently, she was a little confused about her choice of career.
俞昆今年37岁，2015年从法国炮提叶动画学校毕业后回到中国。那时的她对未来的职业选择还有些许迷茫。
After just two months, at the end of 2015, she decided to leave her job as an animation teacher at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, choosing instead to become a freelance illustrator and animation director.
两个月后，在2015年末，她决定辞掉北京服装学院动画教师的工作，选择成为自由插画师和动画导演。
▲俞昆
The aim of the motion graphic was to show what happened to her over the course of the year that followed this momentous decision.
做动图，是为了记录在她做出这个重要决定后的一年中每天发生的事情。
momentous:adj. 重大的，重要的
Initially, at least, it turned out that, when she finished the task, nothing had really changed a great deal. However, in 2018, she was persuaded by a friend to hold an exhibition in Beijing about the motion graphics she had created two years earlier. Her work attracted the attention of Tu Zhigang, editor-in-chief of a Chinese publisher, Pan Press. Tu decided to help Yu publish a book about motion graphics, which was released last year.
至少是在“每日一动图”计划之初，俞昆的生活没发生什么变化。然而，2018年，一个朋友劝她在北京办个展，展示过去两年她创造出的动图。她的作品吸引了乐府文化出版社主编涂志刚的注意，涂志刚决定帮俞昆出版一本关于动图的书，该书已于去年发行。
▲出自俞昆《内向游戏》
The rewards were more spiritual than monetary in the beginning. The online recognition of the experiment, however, enhanced her self-confidence. “It allowed me to applaud myself,” she says, noting that it kick-started a spell of productive creativity.
起初，俞昆收获的更多是精神而非物质上的回报，网络上对她每日一动图的认可增加了她的自信。“我要为我自己鼓掌”，俞昆说。这开启了她一段极富创造力的时期。
a spellof: 一段时间
“As an introvert, I wanted to interact with people, but was too afraid to do so. Showing my work was a circuitous way for me to establish a relationship with the world,” she adds.
“作为一个内向的人，我想和人们互动，但又不敢这么做。给大家看我的作品算是我和世界建立关系的迂回方式。”
circuitous: adj. 迂曲的；绕行的
▲图源：新京报
Later, she created more illustrative and animated works, touching many with her careful observations on life and the subtle feelings she expresses in them.
后来，她创作了更多的插画和动画作品，她对生活的细致观察和其中所表达的微妙情感打动了很多人。
Her profile was raised further when, in 2020, she was invited by The Beijing News to produce a regular animated comic strip depicting daily life.The characters in her cartoons look like ancient Chinese, wearing traditional clothes, but they obviously live a modern life.
2020年，她受《新京报》邀请，制作了一部描绘日常生活的连环动画，进一步提升了她的知名度。动图中的人物像是古代中国人，穿着传统服装，却显然过着现代生活。
▲图源：新京报
“I thought the contrast would be amusing,” Yu says. “You can imagine a person from long ago holding a soft drinkin their hand. It would be more memorable than amodern person doing it.”
“我觉得这种反差会很有趣”，俞昆说。“你可以想象一个古人手里拿着一瓶饮料，这比现代人这么做更让人难忘。”
The design also comes from her appreciation of ancient style. With her father specializing in drawing traditional Chinese paintings, she has been immersed in the genre since childhood. “Even when I buy home furnishings, I prefer ancient style. I really like that,” says Yu.
这样的设计也来自于她对古代风格的欣赏。俞昆的父亲擅长国画，从小她就沉浸在这种画风中。“即便是买家具，我也更喜欢古风，我真的很喜欢。”
She depicts the tiny aspects of life that we often take for granted. For example, one cartoon shows her character moving books to the bedside to read later, but she ends up spending the whole night on her phone. Another shows her going to a cinema in the afternoon and walking out after dark, feeling disoriented.
俞昆的作品记录了我们在生活中认为理所当然的小事。比如，在一幅漫画中，里面的角色把书拿到床边准备一会儿看，结果整晚都在玩手机。另一幅漫画描绘了她下午去看电影，走出来时夜幕已经降临，感觉有点失落。
▲图源：新京报
Yu says she has a special interest in the small things that happen in daily life. “I really like to find moments that people may often ignore in their daily lives, and enlarge them, so that people can realize how valuable such moments truly are.”
俞昆说她对生活里的琐事特别感兴趣。“我很喜欢去发现日常生活中人们经常会忽略的小事并放大它们，让人们意识到这些平常时刻的真正价值。”
She receives feedback from her readers, some of which has surprised and influenced her.
俞昆从读者那里获得很多反馈，很多都让她感觉惊喜，深受触动。
“I used to think that some subtle feelings I portrayed were uniquely my own, and wondered if I was too sensitive. But when I draw them, others tell me that the work strikes a chord with them, then my narcissism collapses and I realize that I am not that different from other people,” says Yu.
“我曾经以为我描绘的那些细微感受只属于自己，还怀疑是不是自己太敏感。但当我把它们画出来，别人告诉我这些作品引起了他们的共鸣，我的‘自恋’崩塌了，我意识到我和其他人并没有什么不同。”
▲图源：新京报
“It gives me a strange sense of warmth, and makes me feel like I don’t need to be too scared or too proud facing the world. That’s really good.”
“这给了我一种奇怪的温暖，让我觉得面对这个世界无需害怕，也无需骄傲，这很好。”
This attitude gave the artist further inspiration. “It makes me realize that I don’t need to worry too much about what anyone thinks about my cartoons when I create them. That is not arrogance. Creators just need to experience their true emotions and express them in their works, so that the sincerity will touch others,” says Yu.
这种态度让俞昆有了更多的灵感：“我意识到创作时不需要太担心别人对我的看法。这不是傲慢，创作者只需要体会自己真实的情感，并在作品中表达出来，这样的真诚才会打动别人。”
Han Rui, a fan of Yu, agrees. “I got to know Yu after watching her cartoon on The Beijing News. I then recommended it to my friends, who say they like it too. I find her work interesting, and a lot of it seems to depict my daily life.”
俞昆的粉丝韩蕊同意该观点。“我是在新京报上看到漫画后知道俞昆的，之后还把她的作品推荐给朋友，他们也很喜欢。她的作品很有趣，很多就像是我的日常生活。”
Yu picked up her animation skills at La Poudriere and was one of the directors ofTo the Bright Side.This animation, which was shown earlier this year in cinemas in China, is an anthology adapted from seven picture books and focuses on the lives of ordinary people.
俞昆在法国炮提叶动画学校学习了动画，如今已成为《向着明亮那方》的导演之一。这部今年早些时候在中国影院上映的动画集，由7本绘本改编而成，聚焦于普通人的生活。
anthology:n. （诗、文、曲、画等的）选集
The story Yu directed was about a stall selling sweet soup in Guangdong province. Yu visited the place, observed how such stalls were operated and integrated those details into the film.
俞昆导演的《蒯老伯的糖水铺》讲述了一个发生在广东糖水铺的故事。她来到广州，观察糖水铺的日常，把这些细节融入进电影中。
“My creations should contain what I experienced and felt, or I cannot render the true feeling for the audience,” she says.
“我的创作应该包含我所经历和感受的，否则无法向观众传达真实的感情。” 俞昆说。
Yu first became interested in animation through her father. He gave her a collection of animated films made by the National Film Board of Canada when she was a middle school student. She then learned illustration and animation at Renmin University of China, before attending La Poudriere.
俞昆最初对动画感兴趣是因为她的父亲。上中学时，父亲曾送她一套加拿大国家电影委员会制作的动画电影。赴法国炮提叶动画学校进修前，俞昆就读于中国人民大学，本科学习动画，研究生时学习插图。
When she was about to graduate in France, she surprised her teachers.
在法国读书即将毕业时，她惊艳了老师们。
When they were assessing her work for her graduation, they found all of Yu’s creations were set in a single room, instead of in various places.
老师们评估她的毕业作品时，发现俞昆创作的内容都发生在同一间屋子里，而非在不同地点。
“It seems that my focus is always what happens in daily life, especially in a room,” Yu explains. “I can find magnificent moments in daily life. Sometimes we don’t realize how important such moments are until recalling the memory. We may find that it was just such a moment that changed our lives.”
“似乎我的关注点总是在日常生活上，特别是在一个房间里”，俞昆解释说。“我能在平常的日子里发现不寻常的时刻。有时候我们意识不到这些平常的时刻多么重要，直到回忆过往时才幡然醒悟，发现就是这样的时刻改变了生活。”
Now her focus is on creating a graphic novel about a 33-day hike she undertook in 2015 on the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route that ends in Santiago de Compostela in the northwest of Spain. She started the hike alone on her 30th birthday. It was a time when she was caught between two worlds, hesitating about whether to go back to China to live with her family or stay in France for a better chance of a career in animation.
现在她的重点是创作一部图画小说，讲述了2015年她徒步33天独自走完西班牙圣地亚哥朝圣之路的故事。这是条古老的路线，终点位于圣地亚哥德孔波斯特拉。她在30岁生日那天独自开始了这次徒步旅行。那段时间，她夹在两个世界之间，犹豫是回国与家人生活在一起，还是留在法国，争取动画事业更好的机会。
She talked with many hikers during the trip, and was inspired by a Belgian dessert chef, who told her it was not such a serious decision. She remembers being told “the Earth is round and one day you’ll come back”. It was this way of thinking that urged her to return to China in the end.
在旅行的过程中，她与很多徒步者交谈，一位比利时的甜点师启发了她。他告诉俞昆，这并不是个多重要的决定。她记得那位甜点师说：“地球是圆的，总有一天你会回来的。”正是这种思维方式促使她最终回到了中国。
“I met different people every day during the trip. They shared their worries and experiences with me and have influenced me a lot. I believe it’s a good idea to share the stories from the journey with others,” says Yu.
“旅途中我每天都会遇到不同的人。他们和我分享他们的担忧和经历，对我影响很大。我相信和大家分享这段旅行会很不错。”
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