Diasporic Body 1 2006

01 Oct 2006 : South Gate Space, 798 Arts District, Beijing, China

The 4th DaDao Live Art Festival Beijing, China. A performance in which I undress and dress again standing besides a life-sized projection of myself. Standing essentially in one spot, the part when I was undressed consisted of pulling at and exploring the folds of the skin, with the clothing treated like a layering of selves. In the projection I endlessly move a grey army blanket over and around my naked body. The work was accompanied by a sound work by Rik Rue. Where will the reading of an enculturated foreign body begin from the viewpoint of another culture? This work is a research on self in which I attempt to perform the layers of identity and self whilst simultaneously struggling with the formation and dissolution of that self before another culture’s eyes. The reflected image of the performer in the form of video projection. Visiting Asia I am confronted with a culture and body to which I cannot belong, to which I am alien. A subtext of not-belonging is present in my work as a first-generation Australian of Jewish European heritage. My identity is multiculturally backgrounded. In this performance I offer the forum of my own body for discussion with a public who do not share the same racial or cultural history as the performer. Cultural readings aside, such dialogue can take place only with, within and between bodies. I present my body as terrain of nationhood and as a symbol of placelessness. I stand in a confused and diasporic body.