Red Baby – Performance Photograph

 Red Baby

Performance Photography : Montreal,  2013

 

Chun Hua Catherine Dong painted her body red and wore diaper, living with strangers hired from Craigslist in a red room as their child. The red baby is lying on the floor like a hopeless baby
Chun Hua Catherine Dong painted her body red and wore diaper, living with strangers hired from Craigslist in a red room as their child. The red baby is sitting on her parents' back like a ghost child
Chun Hua Catherine Dong painted her body red and wore diaper, living with strangers hired from Craigslist in a red room as their child. The red baby is sitting on her father's lap like a giant unhappy baby
Chun Hua Catherine Dong painted her body red and wore diaper, living with strangers hired from Craigslist in a red room as their child. The red baby is fed by her father
Chun Hua Catherine Dong painted her body red and wore diaper, living with strangers hired from Craigslist in a red room as their child. the red baby is loved by her mother
Chun Hua Catherine Dong painted her body red and wore diaper, living with strangers hired from Craigslist in a red room as their child.  the red baby fell off her bicycle
Chun Hua Catherine Dong painted her body red and wore diaper, living with strangers hired from Craigslist in a red room as their child.  the red baby is enjoying her bedtime story
Red Baby consists of 30 staged photographs depicting a family of mixed race parents and a child. I painted my body red, wearing a diaper and fake mouthpiece, and I lived with strangers hired from Craigslist for eight hours in a red room, as their child. They were asked to feed me, play with me, pamper and take care of me. In this work, the “red baby” is a symbol for contemporary China, caught between east and west. The baby, symbolic of both communist and capitalist influences, is also a future model for social transformation, imagining a new utopia.