Aestheticization of Bio-politics
In winter of 2014, the Umbrella Movement, a civil disobedience movement requesting both Beijing and Hong Kong governments to honor their promise of universal suffrage in Hong Kong took place. In response to government’s heavy-handed police tactics, the streets are showered by discursive and choreographic practices of creative civil disobedience: Paper-made outdoor shrines worshiping Chinese and Western deities to pray for protesters’ safety, a Lennon Wall with hundreds of thousands of colorful post-it stickers to express individual’s thoughts during the sit-in, installations made by wires and cloth mimicking Hong Kongers’ poor living condition to mock the developer hegemony, road-signs directing people to “dark corner” (a reference to an incident in which a news camera captured policemen beating one protester in a dark spot near the protest site), open galleries everywhere showcasing paintings and photos of Hong Kong and its endearing people, and finally a wood-patch person holding a yellow umbrella. What we saw on the streets of Hong Kong was precisely the creative intervention combining art and social action.
Yang Jing
in dialogue with
Tuấn Mami on the project In One’s Breath – Nothing Stands Still
Date: 28 March 2016
Time: 7PM – 9PM
Address: Nhà Sàn Collective, 15th Floor, Hanoi Creative City, 1 Lương Yên, Hai Bà Trưng dist., Hà Nội