Yang Yang

Originally, people were symbiotic with bonfires and rivers, and they gradually changed from the long-term life of collecting and fishing to the economic life dominated by agriculture. While growing grain and domesticating livestock, they began to understand how to make pottery with clay. Because of the emergence of pottery, people chose to settle down in a stable life, which may be their chairs. Through moving image and porcelain, I made chairs into the shape of animals and added different legs and tails to them. 

Every year, my grandma's house is eroded by the flood, the walls of the small house that keeps close relationship with the river still have traces left by the beating of the fierce water, and these traditional furniture all show their own unique properties. With the advent of urbanization, people gradually no longer live in public space in the form of agglomeration, and the relationship between family members is limited to marriage and blood relationship. 

However, in the public sphere of the city, many unique and assembled chairs appear. When people sit together to play mahjong and gossip, these creative chairs can be used for rich short-term activities, forming a unique "home". In this project, some natural and public chairs are put back into the private domain. Maybe grandma's small room can be used as an art museum, which is non-authoritative and boundless. During the process, I thought over and over again what is a chair? Perhaps the answer can be found when you give it the unique characteristics it has.

The project combines sound installation and moving image to present the "forest of patients" in the alleys near the cancer hospital, which is a record of patients' pursuit of a better life. The powerful trees are used to metaphorize the lives of patients, they temporarily hide their bodies in a shared kitchen, which looks transparent under the tree heels, thus providing themselves with an escape hatch to rely on in the face of the affliction of illness. In this particular public sphere, the kitchen area, which is originally hidden in the private sphere and family, gradually transits to the city, and then more complex collective and transient home is formed.

This project conducts four women playing croquet matching in cooperation by doing housework, to reflect on capitalism transforming a huge services into private activities. I hope to design an economy that liberates reproduction and family life, and establish a family model such as unemployed labor. It provides a platform for women to compete with men on equal terms and challenges the Victorian idea about morality, power and stereotype.

Players:

Yin Zhong

Magali Burta

Natallia Bulynia

Connie Des Marais