Yangyang Mao

This inspiration came from the pairing aid policy in my hometown Xinjiang, which focused on placing Han relatives in the homes of Uighurs whose family members had been imprisoned or killed by the police. As a faux relative, there was an emotional entanglement generated while undertaking programs of indoctrination and surveillance. I use PVC balloons, hydrographic transfer printing sticker, fluorescent liquid, LED light, ethnic tabour, and hats to show different standpoints and motion trails of different emotions to which two identities belong at different times and in different environments. I use a braid-on hat to connect the two nationalities together. When the ball rolls in the grass, the two parties waywardly drag each other. The tension produced inside the same space creates a state that is always tensional, just like two people have a talk. With the help of certain time and natural space, present how people get along with others of different identities and backgrounds in such a special political environment, such as the direct feeling of Han Chinese when they get involved in life details and private space (wedding ceremony or funeral) of ethnic people, and their psychological fluctuations during regular adaption period, e.g., fear, sympathy, tentativeness, solitude, anxiety, superiority, compunction, and other complex emotions. In a word, they are both controllers and the ones being controlled.

What is the reality of young people born between 1985 and 1995 in China? How do they feel about themselves? As one of the generation, I feel like I’m often haunted by futures that failed to happen. Reasons are multiple and are closely influenced by the social context, such as the implications of the Cultural Revolution(1966-76) and One Child Policy (1980-2016), which has marked each individual’s growth in this age with unfading recollections.