15 Sep 2018, Sat 06:00 PM - 09:00 PM
The Lab, Block 43 Malan Road
Accompanying the opening of
Journey of a Yellow Man. Selected Materials from the
Independent Archive is a performance-installation titled The Body as Archive (2018) by
Lee Wen. A red dress—a relic of past performances—is cast in ice and stands in the waning afternoon light as a silent witness.
The red dress is a recurring motif in Lee Wen’s works, beginning in 2013 with a performance titled
The Call of the Red in which he slips into a red dress and wig, morphing into his mother and expressing her longing for her long-gone husband; a story of love, expectations, longings, patience, and resilience. The motif appears again in his text
Return to Daydreams (2013), in which the dress stands as a memory, frozen in time, of an event that gathers people together in the name of brotherhood and equality:
“We were trans-activators and we dressed like one, in a silk red dress. And we agreed that one of these red dresses would be cast in ice to stand throughout the trans-activation. We were ready, we did not fail, and they did not kill us. It was a great dance of trans-activity. Only I had failed to go where they went. Cause the red dress in the ice block. It was mine I remember is now… 1989.”
Journey of a Yellow Man. Selected Materials from the Independent Archive is on view in The Lab from 15 September to 25 November 2018.