A group of people wearing colorful masks with different colors and unique compositions looks like a group of small abstract paintings. They surround a figure who is curled up in the center of the room, a small room inserted into the gallery, separate from the larger rooms of the other performances, wearing an elaborate cover dotted with glass eyes, a Panopticon monster with a view of all the other performers and their unique masks. An invisible voice can be heard throughout the room rhythmically ordering the masked figure to move and then stop, a group activity of the school game type, such as "red/green light" or "freeze tag." Masked performers form a circle around the watching monster, stopping in unison when the sound changes. A new sound commands them to move again, and they bounce around until they hear the sound again telling them to stop. Every time the sound changes, we feel a sense of tension, as if the performer is afraid of messing up the performance by not being able to follow the voice's command quickly enough (or the character they're playing is afraid of the consequences of not being able to do it correctly).

So I think it's a clear metaphor for society: a group of people coded through their masks as individuals and part of a group, plus at least one person is part of a system that both monitors and controls others. I saw their simple movements, funny but ultimately all moving together in the same circles, become dramatizations of life under the dictatorship: individuality is allowed within an extremely narrow range. The colorful shapes on your mask can be unique; you can jump as you move around the circle or do wacky things with your hands, but you can't opt out of the game, and you certainly can't show your face. The necessary components are visible surveillance so people know they are being watched, and the dictator's voice keeps the body turning.

I think there may also be a third moral here: in a gallery, in a room full of elaborate, colorful paintings, where the dictatorship is a systematized, commercialized art world, a voice says, “Go to art school, make beautiful work, be weird but go in the same direction as everyone else, and never forget, You must be seen by the blindfolded monster at all times.”

At any level, the implications of the work are clear: at the end of the performance, the sound slows and seems to taper off, and the machine similarly loses momentum. After all, a perpetual motion machine without entropy is impossible.

From Forrest Nash, June 2, 2023

Forrest Nash is a writer based in Los Angeles. He runs Contemporary Art Library since 2008.

Dreams and reality envelop us into a self-contained cyclical entity, with glimpses of consciousness penetrating the surface at intersecting nodes, emerging amidst a surreal landscape. Thus, the subconscious lays beneath all individual imagination, emotions, actions, and experiences, becoming a prelude that connects us to the world and gradually expands into a validation of collective memory and answers. It is through the transformation of dreams that we catch a glimpse of the self and the collective beyond the confines of rules.

I showcases an alternative “reality” landscape to the audience through his own dreams, compelling us to reimagine our connection to ourselves and society. It is within this expression and critique that a new round of exploration unfolds in its “completion.”

Medium: linen, iron wire  dyestuff  

Size: about 2m*2m*1.5m

Year：2021

Rules of the Game: Four “rabbits” choose seats randomly and wear the headgear before them (the bottom of headgear cannot be shown outward); The NPC reads out the game context: among the four “rabbits”, one died of suicide (under red lining), and one “rabbit” has a different color before the eyes (the distinction is red lining). Now they need to state how one commits such a “fact” as “suicide”.

Players vote for the one they think committed suicide. How to state: describe the scene before death, which might be anything and any event, but do not disclose the color. Each “rabbit” votes for the “killer” after three statements. Ending of the Game: Three “rabbits” find out the real “suicide” (the one under the red lining).

Ending 1: If three rabbits find out about the real suicide, then they will die in the way the real suicide (status: dead) did; the cause of the loner’s death is discovered by others, who also die of loneliness, and the real suicide is dead as well.

Ending 2: If the three rabbits fail to find out the real suicide, the real suicide will be identified as dead (in the way of the suicide); after the real suicide’s death, the other three will die in the way of the state, i.e., the ending is the death of four rabbits. Imagination comes from deceit. People are attributed to the story created by themselves.

I want to show this work in the form of a game, with rules like numerous invisible rules in real society, invisible but fatal. We are all independent individuals but are coerced by numerous rules. Actually, aren’t we like the “rabbits” in this game? The real ending remains unknown but is grasped by the gamers, who are also controlled by the invisible rules. This is the game, and this is also the reality.

Medium: rebar plastic, oil-colored rice paper

Size: about 2m*2m*2.5m

Year：2021

I reproduce the warm memories of my childhood: my father’s broad back, bright-colored and beautiful baby seat on a bike, osmanthus fragrance perfuming with the wind, bright red blossoms and green willows extending before eyes. From there, I discuss the complex and interwoven historical reality and perceptual reality in the “scenes” of body memories. In a manner of speaking, I try to apply a memory practice approach of narrating by place to write figuratively and trigger emotional identification of certain groups, thus accomplishing the transformation from personal memory to shared memory. In fact, while such a memory is being constructed, viewers are also experiencing a certain empathy. The symbolic system of “scenes of memory” in the work might give rise to a kind of group “emotional field”, although such complicated emotions originate from individuals.

Medium: Ceramics

Size: about 20cm*25cm*30cm each

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size: about 20cm*25cm*30cm each

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size: about 20cm*25cm*30cm each

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size: about 20cm*25cm*30cm each

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size: about 20cm*25cm*30cm each

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size: about 20cm*25cm*30cm each

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size: about 20cm*25cm*30cm each

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size: about 15cm*20cm*10cm each 

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size： about 15cm*20cm*10cm each 

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size： about 15cm*20cm*10cm each 

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size： about 15cm*20cm*10cm each 

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size： about 15cm*20cm*10cm each 

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size： about 15cm*20cm*10cm each 

Year: 2021

Medium: Ceramics

Size： about 15cm*20cm*10cm each 

Year: 2021

Aquatint zinc etching on paper

Intaglio zinc etching on paper

Silkscreen on paper

Silkscreen on paper

Silkscreen, chine collé transfer, and zinc etching on paper

Medium: ink, parchment paper, fishing line

Size: about 2 m by 25 cm by 50 cm

Year：2021

Drawn when I was 15.

Year: 2021

Year: 2021