In Practice: Zishi Han and Wei Yang

At SculptureCenter, Zishi Han and Wei Yang will develop a new phase of their ongoing collaborative research project into historical Chinese homoerotic literature, intertwining multiple narratives that explore queer existences in China and of Chinese diaspora. Emerging from their shared interests in the power dynamics inherent in desire and intimacy, the artists’ point of departure is their own translation of the late Ming dynasty anthology of homoerotic stories 弁而釵 (Biàn ér chāi) by the pseudonymous "The Moon-Heart Master of the Drunken West Lake”, the title of which suggests the action of a man removing his ceremonial headgear and donning a woman's hairpin. Han and Yang’s performance-and-video works loosely interpret the text’s storylines to dwell amidst the blurry boundary between the fictional and the biographical, while drawing on a variety of Chinese historical and contemporary cultural practices, such as poetry, Chinese Opera, literati landscape painting, Danmei literature, C-pop and reality TV shows.