{"id":1502,"date":"2024-06-20T09:45:10","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T01:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2026-07-28T23:46:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:46:02","slug":"psi29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/2024\/06\/20\/psi29\/","title":{"rendered":"PSi#29: Assembling Living Memories through Collective-making"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1524\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1524\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_01.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1524 size-medium_large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_01-768x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_01-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_01-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_01-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_01-210x210.jpg 210w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_01.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1524\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(photo by Amy Chan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I convened the panel &#8220;Assembling Living Memories through Collective-making&#8221; in the 29th Performance Studies International (PSi#29) &#8212; Assemble! conference at the University of London.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The panel explores the transformative power of collective artistic practices in constructing and preserving living memories of Hong Kong and its diaspora in a politically challenging time. It also investigates how the process of assembly, through collaborative art projects and interventions, enables the formation of new narratives, the reimagining of cultural identities, and the fostering of connections within communities.\u00a0 Clara Cheung analyzes British artist Eelyn Lee\u2019s collaborative art projects exploring Hong Kong and East and Southeast Asian cultural identities in the UK, through the assemblage of Chinese mythologies and personal family stories via a performative workshopping process.\u00a0 wen yau investigates the performative practices surrounding the <i>Goddess of Democracy<\/i> in Hong Kong, examining how artists use counter-monuments to contest imposed identities and construct critical identities of \u201cHongkongers\u201d.\u00a0 In her paper, Cally Yu explores how community dance workshops challenge stereotypes of aging, foster transformation, and facilitate inter-subjectivity among participants of different ages.\u00a0 Overall, these papers highlight the performative practices of collective-making in assembling living memories, reclaiming cultural identities, and promoting transformative experiences in the face of political changes over the last few decades.<\/p>\n<p>Panel Papers include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Performing the tale of Lo Ting, in the encounter with the emergence of ESEA identity in Britain<\/em><br \/>\nClara CHEUNG (PhD candidate, History of Art Department, University of York)<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Performative (Count-)monument as a means of Resembling Critical Identities<\/em><b><br \/>\n<\/b>wen yau (independent artist\/researcher)<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Embodied experiences, Transformation, Transindividuation and Aging<\/em><b><br \/>\n<\/b>Cally Yeuk Mui YU (independent writer)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_02.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1525\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_02-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"325\" height=\"244\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_02-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_02-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_02-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_02-210x158.jpg 210w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_02.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 325px) 100vw, 325px\" \/><\/a> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1527\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_04-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"325\" height=\"244\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_04-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_04-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_04-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_04-210x158.jpg 210w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_04.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 325px) 100vw, 325px\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In my paper &#8220;Performative (Count-)monument as a means of Resembling Critical Identities&#8221;, I look at how Hongkongers\u2019&#8217; identities are performed in an ongoing process of monumentalizing the <i>Goddess of Democracy<\/i> in Hong Kong from 1989 to the present.\u00a0 The sculpture first appeared as a protest object during the 1989 Beijing Tiananmen Square Movement and was destroyed during the crackdown.\u00a0 After then, a group of artists in Hong Kong recreated the sculpture, and the campaign organiser used it to present a political cause of continuing the movement\u2019s pursuit of a more democratic China.\u00a0 Over the next two decades, the sculpture evolved from a monumental image commemorating the victims of the crackdown in the annual vigils to miniature merchandises sold in the new year market and a variant sculpture created by a Chinese diaspora artist installed on a university campus.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1526 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_03-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_03-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_03-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_03-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_03-210x140.jpg 210w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29_03.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/> With reference to Mechtild Widrich\u2019s notion of performative monuments, I investigate the performative practices surrounding the <i>Goddess of Democracy<\/i> and its variants in the past 3 decades.\u00a0 For example, in regular commemoration assemblies, for example, the public participated in collective actions such as laying flowers, chanting slogans, mourning the victims with candlelight, and taking photos as a promise to pass on the memories and continue the pursuit of a more democratic China; students and alumni escorted a new sculpture as it was transported to the university campus, demonstrating a strong sense of belonging and solidarity.\u00a0 Meanwhile, there were art events that resembled counter-monuments by reflecting on the monumentality of the sculpture and its images.\u00a0 Some artists created sculptural work inspired by the <i>Goddess of Democracy<\/i>; others lay flowers every year in another public art sculpture in town created by a French artist based on hearsay stories that it was created in memory of the 1989 Beijing movement, and some younger artists have been rallying on bicycles from this public art sculpture to the annual vigil, among other things.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">To conclude, I suggest that the artists&#8217; performative (counter-)monuments presented a critical and alternative perspective of &#8220;Hongkonger&#8221; identities by contesting the Chinese-Hongkonger identity imposed not only by the regime but also by the main organiser of the 1989 crackdown commemoration.\u00a0 While attempting to assemble memories of a politically repressed event in history and resemble local histories in the process of monumentalisation, the critical identities of &#8220;Hongkongers&#8221;are constructed and reconstructed amid the political changes along the colonial and post\/trans-colonial times.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1529\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29-300x201.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29-300x201.gif 300w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29-768x513.gif 768w, https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/PSi29-210x140.gif 210w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>This panel is part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/psi29.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PSi#29 &#8212; Assemble!<\/a> hosted by The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cssd.ac.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Royal Central School of Speech and Drama<\/a>, University of London, in collaboration with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.liftfestival.com\/event\/psi-29\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LIFT<\/a> (London International Theatre Festival), in partnership with the University of London\u2019s Birkbeck, Royal Holloway, and School of Advanced Studies, 20-23\/06\/2024.<\/p>\n<p>(all photos by Evelyn Wan, unless specified.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I convened the panel &#8220;Assembling Living Memories through Collective-making&#8221; in the 29th Performance Studies International (PSi#29) &#8212; Assemble! conference at the University of London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","lc_iscn_info":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,42],"tags":[95,94,53,8,2],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-presentation","tag-counter-monument","tag-monument","tag-performance-studies","tag-present","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1535,"href":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wenyau.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}