“DON’T TALK ABOUT POLITICS, DON’T TALK ABOUT SEX!”, collaborate with Shelley Hu, 2018, performance, Unnamed Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
The title of this work is coming from a subtext in China.
This project is a participative performance simulating the reading class under the Chinese education system. The readings materials for this class are excerpted from Chinese public opinions towards sex and politics, adapted from news, interviews, and comments on the internet. The conversational style of the texts represents a wide variety of voices in society.
The class is divided into three progresses: in the first stage, the “students”(audience) will read the text after the teachers: the second stage, the teachers will ask the students questions according to the materials; in the last stage, the class upgrade to a sexually suggestive and abnormal atmosphere, the teachers threaten and punish students with whips, and use unusual language and behavior to make “students”(audience) feel uncomfortable. Under the high-pressure and perverted form of escalation, the audience's behavior in the performance from laughter, obedience, resistance, to compromise, silence, and cooperation. By completing with the audience, this project focuses on the problem of how the political system influences our education system and how education effect the construction of individual consciousness.
The title of this work is coming from a subtext in China.
This project is a participative performance simulating the reading class under the Chinese education system. The readings materials for this class are excerpted from Chinese public opinions towards sex and politics, adapted from news, interviews, and comments on the internet. The conversational style of the texts represents a wide variety of voices in society.
The class is divided into three progresses: in the first stage, the “students”(audience) will read the text after the teachers: the second stage, the teachers will ask the students questions according to the materials; in the last stage, the class upgrade to a sexually suggestive and abnormal atmosphere, the teachers threaten and punish students with whips, and use unusual language and behavior to make “students”(audience) feel uncomfortable. Under the high-pressure and perverted form of escalation, the audience's behavior in the performance from laughter, obedience, resistance, to compromise, silence, and cooperation. By completing with the audience, this project focuses on the problem of how the political system influences our education system and how education effect the construction of individual consciousness.
