FIELDWORK
SITUATED
IMAGINARIES
A rectangle is chalked on the dusty ground in front of the village convenience store. A boy lies down to fit himself in it, rolling around as though he were lying on a soft, comfy bed. He later fills a square in the corner with dense blue. He said it is the sea, one in the furthermost place.
A granny likes to sing. She sings her way around the village. Her walking stick is sometimes a paddle and sometimes a chisel, depending on where her songs take her in places and times.
A group of aunties dances on the village street every day after dinner. Occasionally, cars and goats pass. Unphased, the aunties dance around them.
These are some recent moments in the daily life of Shigushan village. Our team has been living with the community in Shigushan. The daily activities are improvising, together with the villagers, slightly odd scenarios, in which playing, singing and dancing take place.
Feeling odd or weird is the delicate, ambiguous state we are trying to co-curate. Oscillating between the familiar and the strange, it is one step out of reality but not yet into fiction. With improvisation, we hope to stimulate the villagers’ own performative expressions, story-telling and imaginations that are otherwise hidden.
This is part of an experimental framework of Speculative Anthropology: joining with marginalised communities in their situated perspectives and embodied vision. At least, if done with care and sensitivity, it is an act of solidarity. At most, such alliances constitute political subjects of knowledge—“knowledge potent for constructing worlds less organised by axes of domination.”
To read more on “situated imaginaries” or “speculative anthropology”, please see the column series on PRECARITY︎︎︎ at KoozArch.
A granny likes to sing. She sings her way around the village. Her walking stick is sometimes a paddle and sometimes a chisel, depending on where her songs take her in places and times.
A group of aunties dances on the village street every day after dinner. Occasionally, cars and goats pass. Unphased, the aunties dance around them.
These are some recent moments in the daily life of Shigushan village. Our team has been living with the community in Shigushan. The daily activities are improvising, together with the villagers, slightly odd scenarios, in which playing, singing and dancing take place.
Feeling odd or weird is the delicate, ambiguous state we are trying to co-curate. Oscillating between the familiar and the strange, it is one step out of reality but not yet into fiction. With improvisation, we hope to stimulate the villagers’ own performative expressions, story-telling and imaginations that are otherwise hidden.
This is part of an experimental framework of Speculative Anthropology: joining with marginalised communities in their situated perspectives and embodied vision. At least, if done with care and sensitivity, it is an act of solidarity. At most, such alliances constitute political subjects of knowledge—“knowledge potent for constructing worlds less organised by axes of domination.”
To read more on “situated imaginaries” or “speculative anthropology”, please see the column series on PRECARITY︎︎︎ at KoozArch.
Group dance improvisation in the abandoned People’s Commune Assembly HallScenario in RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING, 2022
Photographed by Chen Zhan
Solo dance improvisation in the abandoned People’s Commune Assembly Hall
Scenario in RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING, 2022
Photographed by Chen Zhan
Under the Red Sun
Scenario in RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING, 2022
Photographed by Chen Zhan
Buffalo in the Room
Scenario in RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING, 2022
Photographed by Chen Zhan
Family Portrait
Scenario in RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING, 2022
Photographed by Chen Zhan
CONTEXT
Floating, Dissolving, Rippling ︎︎︎
DOCUMENTARY
On the Margins ︎︎︎
Filmic Collage ︎︎︎
FIELDWORK
Material Dependencies ︎︎︎
Chair & Active Waiting ︎︎︎
Situated Imaginaries ︎︎︎
Collective Happening ︎︎︎
EXPERIMENTAL
The Hall ︎︎︎
Field Synesthesia ︎︎︎
Back to PROJECT ︎︎︎