Yingmei and Her Friends in Chongqing
Duration:
12.02.2019 — 19.05.2019 (Opening Performancedauer: 1,5 hours)
Dimensions Art Center(DAC), Chongqing, China
Photographer:
Juren Chen
Object Interactive Performance and Object & Video Interactive Performance
Yingmei and her collaborators:
Yingmei Duan and Blaise Schwartz, Sufang Chen, Xunan Chen, Chongqing Huiling Service Organisation for People with Intellectual Disabilities, Jing He, HouLiuMei Hot and Sour Noodle Restaurant, Jiayi Hu, Yanzi Hu, Mr. L, Li Yu Tea Shop, Liang QianHao Restaurant, Ying Liu, Hua Lu, Wenting Ma, Mai Yuandi Bun & Porridge Restaurant, Ni Er, Jiamin Ouyang, Seven Days Vegetation Dyeing Art Studio, Qian Ren, Lihua Shao, Changxue Tian, Shenggu Tun, Qiong Wang, Ying Wang, Youzhen Wang, Xiyu Leather Art Store, Zhe Yuan, Zhaoqing Zeng & Ya Wang, Jing Zhang, Luona Zhang & Ke Hu, Zhaoying Zhang and Xianfan Zhu
In 2019, as an artist in residence for 3 months at DAC in Chongqing, I developed 34 “Object Interactive Performance” and “Object & Video Interactive Performance” artworks with my collaborators, which were brought together in the exhibition “Yingmei and Her Friends in Chongqing”.
The people I collaborated with were of different ages and worked in different professions. I hoped to better understand old and new friends who live in Chongqing and to create memories between us.
For the opening exhibition performance I invited people who were not engaged with the art world professionally. I transformed their everyday work into performance art. For example, the cleaning lady swept the floor and the shoemaker made shoes.
Over the years I have collaborated many times, and each time I have a different experience. Collaborating with each person has touched me greatly and given me different feelings. Each person is like a thick book of which I only get to know a small section during the project.