Representation, Self-expression and performed gesture
Dinu Li
- Gina Pane and Francois Mason – using her body as a canvas within her performance work she creates. Francois Mason works as a commercial photographer. Is the performance heightened by the use of the commercial photographer rather than a photographer who is more discreet in the way that they take the images?
- Dinu Li has a great interest in archives
- ‘The rising sun in China’
Nation Family – 2017 – Single channel video installation
- The title written in Chinese means ‘Country’
- Psychological escapism – An image displayed his uncle holding what looked to be a radio whilst situated in the labor camp, however on confronting his uncle about this, he said in fact it was a brick with a bamboo shoot poking out of the top with buttons painted on it. Although he could not physically hear anything from this object, psychologically he could hear music playing; this was his escapism from the horrible reality that he was living in.
- In the video it displays a range of images, in the background you can hear a radio being tuned, changing through the channels.
- Then two individuals began discussing the experience of the labor camp; the things that they would get them doing and punishment that they would receive if they didn’t do it.
- During the new year they would come back to see their family, but the individuals were never the same; they were reciting the story of Dinu Li’s uncle and the brick.
- Metal - arts organization helped support the work of Dinu Li with the making of his video
Crescendo – 2010 – Single channel video with sound
- To make this Dinu Li went on a 3-month residency again using archives within his work
- A state funded museum collaborated with him on his work as part of this project
- He met a group of individuals, whilst he was taking the bus and he saw them in the middle of the dual carriageway burning pieces of paper, including old funeral documentation, Dinu immediately got off the bus and questioned the individuals on why they were carrying out this old tradition in the place that they were and not on the pavement out of the traffic, and they said that the exact place where they were burning the paper was where they used to live and China knocked these houses down and built the dual carriageway.
- So as a result, they were angry. Dinu Li asked them if they would be interested in creating a project with him to display how angry they were. He decided to create a flash mob that would take place on the metro and they would be confronting each other about the immediate issue. Within this project Dinu Li was also working alongside another artist, making this project a collaboration piece.
- They decided to execute the project on a Saturday when they knew that the metro would be at its busiest. The project was overall a real success as the team started accidently shouting at individuals who weren’t part of their group and these other individuals were also getting involved; creating a sense of realism throughout their project.
- This project was quite high risk, as causing trouble on the metro can land you in a great deal of trouble and people were becoming very upset about the group filming.
- The execution of the flash mob did not go as planned and instead of carrying out the ‘confrontation’ and going about their business again, they instead got embroiled in a situation that could have resulted in them becoming arrested.