Monster, Performance, Video, Dimensions Variable, 12'19", 2022. 

 

I am sitting in the bathtub, holding a knife in my right hand. I am scraping off the bubbles on my body like carving out flesh, while weighing them on a scale. My body’s “red meat” is gradually revealed, and the scale is submerged by the bubbles. The inspiration for this work comes from a news story that a bridegroom’s mother calculated the bride's dowry values based on her weight. It shocked me that she measured the value of women in the way of weighing flesh rather than respecting them as a person.

 

This work reflects on the cruelty of invisible gender violence and the double oppression of the patriarchy and East Asian Confucius beliefs in China. I hope to challenge these cultures and disrupt the social norms that advocate non-resistance under oppression, and encourage Chinese women to fight back against it in a more radical gesture, as the way of feminist killjoys living in Sara Ahmed's sense. Also, it explores how performative artistic ways as a cultural intervention.