Learning Xi 学习 | 2017

A Performance Piece

The performance piece originates from a conversation between my father and me before I went to the US to study art when he insisted on me finding a copy of Xi’s Speech at the Symposium on the Arts (2015) to “study its spirit”. At that time, I held a strongly against position to both my father’s proposal and this specific political speech as if it would “pollute” my notions on art. Something subtly changed after I started studying abroad. It was the beginning stage of my reflecting on the relationship between my nationality and my identity, dealing with the anxiety led by the displacement.

This performance piece was an intuitive documentation of that period. The original Xi’s speech was edited, translated into English, and reproduced during the 2017 Fall Open Studio of the SVA MFA Photo Department.

Link: Xi’s speech on the arts unveiled in full