This performance has been performed four times between 2013 – 2015, it was different each time I performed.

step 1. pinch my forehead until a red dot appears
step 2. use a spoon to scratch my neck until a red line appears
step 3. draw pink circles on my belly with a lipstick 
step 4. throw gold paper to audience
step 5. pour ink on my back from a tea pot
step 6. shoot myself with ink from a gun

After living aboard as a Chinese for 12 years, I noticed there is a tremendous change inside me: something that has nurtured and cultivated me has gradually faded and forgotten. The gesture of shooting myself with ink is a political gesture. It is not only an apology for my twelve-year absence but also a manifestation that reveals my urgent needs to renew my lost tradition and culture. The ink is an essential material for Chinese traditional painting and calligraphy. In my performance, the ink is not to be used as an artistic tool, but to be used as a weapon against myself. This performance examines relationships between where I live, what I have lost, and what  I have gained as a Chinese living aboard.  This performance is also a ritual meditation. In this suicidal ritual, I baptize myself with Chinese ink in order to be saved from fear of loss, preserve my identity from the process of self-transformation, and to capture my stray soul in a foreign land.

This work has been performed at
Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival in Chicago
Infr’ Action Venezia Performance Festival, Venice
MANIFEST! Choreographing Social Movements in the Americas Conference, PHI Centre, Montreal
Truck Contemporary Art,  part of  M:ST Performative Art Festival, 2014,  Calgary, Canada

photo credit: Tongyu Zhao and  Christian Bujold