TRUE GIRLS SHOW

GUANGZHOU CHINA / 2011
INSTALLATION AND PERFORMANCE

Collaboration: Melanie Humann, Zong Jialing, Observation Society

Funded by Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Liberia Borges Institute or Contemporary Art

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Our concepts of reality and our longings are shaped by our cultural background and by the media around us. 

Media like TV and advertisements in daily life present us with a certain picture, we can obly find a few elements of a different culture which can fit in our culture. We find this phenomenon as much in Western as in Eastern culture. According to our cultural background, we develop a mental picture of our longings. This desired picture of reality is a projection of something far away, a kind of fiction.

In the very beginning of our process, we conducted interviews with 30 woman, aged 15 to 56, from Guangzhouh, Zengcheng and Shenzhen. We tried to find out what kind of picture, in terms of living space, they longed for. We developed 30 questions, which they answered, and we also asked them to draw their ideal living space. After evaluating the answers, we tried to develop a space that would come close to an average picture of their desired living situation. Through the filter of a Western view, we developed a space that only can be a vague representation of an interpretation of their mental picture.