Colour Bleed Chengdu 2018

21 Oct 2018 : The 6th UP-ON Live Art Festival, Chengdu, China

In this version of Colour Bleed I performed on a University Campus assisted by a team of 6 landscaping students. The different food colouring dyes available in China led to a different end outcome with a very black sumi-e like ink in the final mix. The performance was dynamic with the audience being given toothpicks with which to puncture the bags of coloured water. The audience were very animated, squealing, thrusting and dodging the spurts of colour. This performance is fun and risky for the audience. They have to pierce the bags of coloured water and avoid the waters splashing onto their clothing, so there is a lot of laughing. But the image is serious. Colour Bleed refers to the idea of the internal colours and fluids of the body draining out. The performance draws on the image of take-away drinks in plastic bags used in Malaysia. By puncturing the bags with toothpicks it is as if the public wound the artist and also partake of a communal meal at which the artist himself is the sacrificial animal.