Five Events and Some Observations on Identity

What forms collective identity at the present moment, a moment that seems to be extremely (and bizarrely) both hybrid and polarised? 

And to what extent is an individual inevitably part of a collective identity? 

The work takes an autobiographical approach. As a migrant living in London, the artist experiences certain psychological events prompted by the emergence of collective identity into consciousness.

What is seen here is not a documentation of those psychological events, rather it’s the reactions to them, which were formed in experiencing the subtle but constant tension with the collective identity. It shifts with great fluidity between being unaware of it and reminded of it, identifying with it and resisting it as an individual. 

By magnifying the micro in the vernacular, the work speaks out loud the unease possibly commonly shared and ask how do we live with identities that we don’t necessarily identify with?


关于身份问题的五个事件和一些观察

如何定义集体身份？尤其在这个文化和政治都极度融合又极度分化的当下，哪些力量左右着集体身份的形成？

个体又在多大程度上不由自主地被笼罩在集体身份之下？

作品以自传式的视角，剖析作为一个在伦敦生活的移民，当意识到集体身份的存在时遭遇的心理事件。

这里所呈现的并非是对这些心理事件的记录，而是创作者身处微妙却持续的与集体身份的纠葛，对这些事件作出的回应。这种纠葛摇摆于“我”仅作为“我”存在，被提醒起集体身份的时刻，以及个体对这个身份的认可和抗拒。

通过放大日常生活中的微观面向，作品将这种可能广泛存在的不适置于明处。20多年前，黄永砯建构了一个世界，身份之间的差别在那里被消解——无论何种身份都无外乎于权力的支配。然而我们生活的今天离那个世界依然遥远，那么一个可能更为实际的问题是，我们要如何与那些自己未必认可的身份相处？