To Be or Not to Be? (2018–2019)
Multimedia triptych (lithograph and video)
Lithographs: 26 x 20 inches
Video: 00:59 excerpt; 16:11 run time (looping); Cinematography by Jeffrey Chance
Born and raised in China and now living and working in the US, I find both countries’ natalism hypocritical. In China, children are expected to repay their parents for the "gift of life,” although no one asked for such an onerous "gift." In the US, fetuses’ lives are “sacred,” yet numerous children are caged or shot at school. As a response, this triptych contemplates whether we would consent to being born if we knew what we were in for while still in utero.
The first lithograph shows a fetus enclosed in the stone matrix-womb, seemingly kidnapped and diving headfirst to the womb door. A handwritten excerpt from a Confucian classic, The Classic of Filial Piety, flows from her umbilical cord down to her blindfold. The Chinese text details how one’s body is a gift from one’s parents, and, therefore, one should not dare damage it.
In the video centerpiece, the necessary evil of stone-graining becomes essential, showing the fetus’ gradual erasure; a journey back in time to before she exists.
In the last lithograph, the fetus reincarnates in the same matrix-womb. Knowing how her life would turn out, she can now decide whether to be born or not.
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