Penumbra asks umbra：I am a fish
罔两问景：我是一只鱼
2020
03’07”
Moving Image
(Audio credits: Guqin: Chaoran Xu; Xun: Ning Zhang, Erhu: Mingyuan Chen)
Between shape and shadow, there is the penumbra. In ambiguity, they ask…
The penumbra questions three realms: the boundaries between binary sex; the queer desire; and the inevitable anthropocentric projection. Hermaphrodite clownfish turns from orange to brown, then black and white — a process of sexual maturity. It spends the entire life waiting for the moment it becomes female, the “queen”.
Our work is penumbra to the world but umbra to our audiences, as they become the penumbra to ask us. We reflect on our anthropocentric projection of the queerness to the hermaphrodite clownfish, and also hope that the audiences will continue to ask...
The Chinese instruments used in the soundtrack include Guqin, Xun and Erhu. They resonate with Zhuangzi, the classical Daoist text from which the tale Penumbra asks umbra originates.
Intoxicated self-graftage
Medium:
withered plants, grafting belt, zero blaster, smoke ring
Size:
variable dimension
We use smog as the embodiment of queerness. Sharing many similarities with queerness, smog is defined as “fog or haze intensified by smoke or other atmospheric pollutants.” Fog is impure, unstable and a source of “pollution”. However, in the stigmatised margin, queerness reveals its subversive and emancipatory power.
Group Exhibition
Queer Cinema Collective Shanghai(CINEMQ), Shanghai, China. Forthcoming
Royal College of Art Work in Progress show, online, London, UK. 29 January 2021 to 5 February 2021,
About Art & Design Education FutureLab,West Bund Artistic Center, Shanghai, China. 5-13 December 2020
“MADE IN MIND series II ”, Mcube Gallery, Lalitpur, Nepal. August 2020
“Trans-Identity：Body，Soul and Time”, NO Space 无空间, Beijing, China. June, 2020
