About
The programme concludes with 60 minutes of new performance, hosted by Whiskey Chow, with work from five artists – Sin Wai Kin (fka Victoria Sin), LI YILEI, Chenta Tsai, Scotty So and Whiskey Chow. The performances will be followed by a talk between Chow and E-J Scott, fashion historian and curator of the Museum of Transology.
Chenta Tsai 蔡承達 (aka. putochinomaricon): This Puede Ser Wǒ (This Could Be Me)
This Puede Ser Wǒ (This Could Be Me) questions the possibility of constructing ‘margin technologies’ (tecnologías del márgen, term that appears in ‘Multitud Marica’ edited by Felipe Rivas San Martín and Francisco Godoy Vega whereas to refer to spaces created by non hegemonic bodies responding to social exclusion) in virtual spaces for Asian sexual and gender dissidents, spaces that embrace us entirely without having to fragment, to simplify or to hide parts of our identities to adapt to hegemonic spaces. The project is inspired by the novel Crystal Boys by the author Hsien-Yung Pai, a gay novel first published in 1983 that popularized the park that today we know as Park 228 in Taipei, previously known as a meeting point for sexual dissidents during the end of the 20th century that responded to social injustice and exclusion, until it was reopened. Considered by the artist as an exemplary space where ‘margin technology’ was practiced and a reappropriated as a space to build community between taiwanese sexual and gender dissidents, the site is recreated in this project and used as the foundation to construct speculative virtual spaces of desire, of resistance, pleasure and healing
LI YILEI: H.A.T.C.H (Hatching from the wondrous trance I lay)
H.A.T.C.H Is a private story that is to be uncovered revolves around phantasies of gender dysphoria, queer fragility and autism, through improvisation of sound and story telling.
Sin Wai Kin 單慧乾: Hundun
Sin Wai Kin reads an excerpt from their forthcoming film A Dream of Wholeness in Parts describing the experience of eating a bowl of Wonton Noodles.
Scotty So 蘇港鴻: Dreamt of a Butterfly
Dreamt of a Butterfly, is a duo video channel performance work of Scotty So that references the gender acting in the Chinese literature Butterfly Lovers, and the dream argument of self in Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream. In this work, So dresses up as the female cross-dressing character Zhu Yingtai in Butterfly Lovers who dressed up as a man in disguise, So then lipsyncs to the 60s Chinese covered Madame Butterfly by Grace Chang. In another look, So dresses in authentic Kimonos and Katsura wig to perform Maria Callas’s version of Madame Butterfly in Italian in a way to further blurring the gender and cultural references by appropriating the western appropriated male gazed opera and also fulfilling that gaze. So imagined the protagonists in different love tragedies from the Butterfly Lovers to the Western gazed Madam Butterfly, and M. Butterfly, are the same butterfly having different dreams of being human, resonating Zhuangzi’s dream of being a butterfly.
Whiskey Chow: you must everywhere wander
Showcasing an imaginative queer masculine body-scape, where the spices used in Chinese cooking grow as spectacular natural landscapes, the work is a hybrid of filmed performance, CGI animation and sound art. Working with digital artist Gene Chen and queer Chinese photographer Ning Zhou, Chow’s work draws on Chinese myth and ecofeminism.
you must everywhere wander is a meeting point of transgressive queer desire, a dream homeland and reality. We are what we eat, we are what we remember, we are what we believe.
Details
Chenta Tsai 蔡承達 (aka. putochinomaricon)
MADRILENIAN based artist Chenta Tsai 蔡承達 (aka. putochinomaricon) is a musician, producer, and live performer that uses pop as a tool of political resistance. Their narratives consist of their identity as a sexual and gender dissident Taiwanese diaspora and their vital experiences growing up in Spain. They have performed physically and virtually in festivals and clubs such as Primavera Sound(ES), Sónar(ES), Heav3n(US) or Final (TW). Chenta Tsai is also a writer of 'Arroz Tres Delicias - Sexo, Raza y Género' and former columnist of Spanish newspaper 'El País'. (Image credit: @ardenqueardan)
LI YILEI 李亦蕾
LI YILEI (b. China) is a London-based musician, performance and sound artist. As a gender non-conforming individual with Aspergers, the experience fluctuates between chaos and stillness, reflecting various conditions of being and existence. Their body of work which spans sound, text, installation and photography, is plagued with the polarity of minimalist subtle moments that are translated into abstract sonic and visual languages. Li’s works are abstract manifestations of an inquiry into tropes of phenomena, existence, power dynamics, and the politics of sound and listening. Constantly examines the discriminatory perception of the world’s phenomena in its subtlest terms, exploring the inaudible and diaspora body, as well as the practice of non- hierarchical listening.
Sin Wai Kin 單慧乾
Sin Wai Kin 單慧乾 (b. 1991, Toronto CA) is an artist using speculative fiction within performance, moving image, writing, and print to interrupt normative processes of desire, identification, and objectification. Drawing from close personal encounters of looking and wanting, their work presents heavily constructed fantasy narratives on the often unsettling experience of the physical within the social body.
Scotty So 蘇港鴻
Scotty So 蘇港鴻 is a Melbourne based artist who works across media, using painting, photography, sculptures, site-responsive installation, videos and drag performance. Driven by the thrill of camp, he explores the often-contradictory relationship between humour and sincerity within lived experience. Born and raised in Hong Kong, So graduated BFA Honours at the Victorian College of the Arts with First Class Honours in Melbourne, Australia, 2019. So’s work has been displayed in Hong Kong, China and Australia, including the Triennial 2020 of the National Gallery of Victoria.
Whiskey Chow
b.1989 London-based performance artist and Chinese drag king. Whiskey’s art practice engages with broadly defined political issues, covering a range of related topics: from female and queer masculinity, problematizing the nation-state across geographic boundaries, to stereotypical projections of Chinese/Asian identity. Her work is interdisciplinary, combining embodied performance with moving image and experimental sound pieces. As an artist-curator, Whiskey launched, led-curated and performed in ‘Queering Now 酷兒鬧’ in 2020 (Chinese Arts Now Festival). Queering Now is a curatorial programme amplifying marginalized voices of the queer Chinese/Asian diaspora. Whiskey has been involved in feminist and LGBTQ activism in China since 2011. She contributed to and performed in ‘For Vaginas’ Sake 將陰道獨白到底 (2013)’ (original Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues), and curated the first Chinese LGBTQ music festival, ‘Lover Comrades Concert 愛人同志音樂會 (2013)’, Guangzhou. Whiskey's recent works include: Do You Hear The People Dream?, Wysing Polyphonic Festival, Online; The Moon is Warmer than the Sun, Queering Now, Rich Mix, London (2020); Unhomeliness, Tate Modern, London; Whiskey the Conqueror, Tate Britain, London(2018); Purely Beautiful New Era (ft. Haocheng Wu), Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Great Conversation, Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala (2017).
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