Performance: Poem on Stitch

 

Poem on Stitch is a live performance as a part of the group performance exhibition Enjoy Yourself in Leipzig, Germany.

Five artists who are involved in the exhibition are from five different countries, speaking four languages apart from English. And none of us speak German.

The exhibition contains five stations, and each artist asks the audience's interaction using his/her native language.

As in my performance section Poem on Stitch, I can only speak Chinese during the whole process.

I invite people to sit across to me, and then start to brush my hair tenderly, till one hair falls. I then hand the comb to the audience and ask for one of their hair. After they offer me their hair, I tie it on my hair ends with a knot.

Afterward, I collect my falling hair, lay it on one piece of paper, write done one sentence from a random Chinese poem on the paper, fold the paper as a letter with the hair in it, and hand the letter to the audience.

At the end of this interactive performance, I have innumerable strangers' hair attach to mine. At the same time, they left the exhibition with my hair on a poem which they don't have access to.