Skew (Performance/Installation）

Artist: Xiao Lu

Performance Time: Everning, 12th Spt, 2019

Location: 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong

Matirials: Acrylic trilateral pyramid, each edge 2.1 meters, red-coloured water, a black dress.

Dress design: Feng Ling

Exhibition: Skew ( Solo Show)

Exhibition Period: 12th Spt. - 5 Oct, 2019

Location: 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong

Photography: William Furniss

Performance Process

Xiao Lu, wearing a long black dress stands in front of the work and tells the viewers: “This work is for Hong Kong.” She then enters the space shaped like a trilateral pyramid, two sides of which (including the base) are red, the remaining two sides being transparent, and which is almost hermetically sealed. Through a round hole, which remains unsealed as yet, the audience pours red-coloured water, after which this hole is also closed. Xiao Lu tries to break out from the inside, banging her head, hands and body against all sides. She stands up and falls again repeatedly. She struggles and roars, and resists desperately. Finally with all the might in her body, she opens up a gap in one side of the triangle. Red water surrounds her rolling body as it gushes out of the closed triangular space.

Breaking: upon seeing Xiao Lu’s performance Skew               

Wearing black in the fall night

The monsoon brings storms.

Roaring waves

Crash into the mouth of the Harbour.

The gleam of gore is reflected in the skyskrapers.

Underground fire scorches the streets and alleys.

The uncowed city is covered in wounds.

If freedom is brutally raped

Then how can those who betray freedom

Be forgiven?

If the fresh blood is wantonly defiled,

Then how can conscience and dignity

Be silenced?

The raging roar of Lion Rock shakes heaven and earth.

The moon hangs lonely

Like an eye-catching wound.

Vibrant lives

Smash into the barriers over and over.

Lives that break through walls

Break through the blockades of blood-red night.

Pupating butterflies shout for the recovery of dawn.

- A Zhen

14th Sep. 2019 in Beijing, China

“It’s not because there is hope that we resist. It’s because we resist that there is hope” – the people of Hong Kong. 
In 2019 Hong Kong was a bonfire. To protect the freedom, democracy, and rule of law in their homeland, the people of Hong Kong startled the world with their tears and roared with the cries of devils and gods. Their self-immolating courage inspired Xiao Lu’s soul. She was there to experience and record the “anti-extradition” protest marches, and completed her performance work Tilt in Hong Kong on 12 September, 2019. 
Xiao Lu uses the colours black and red in building the installation Tilt, then enters the fully enclosed space. Her struggle and resistance are combined with images of the Hong Kong people’s “anti-extradition” protest marches. As she stated before carrying out the performance Tilt: “This work is for Hong Kong!”.

_ Xiao Lu

See this work video: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmHUAt3sMA-/

An interview video by "ArtAsiaPacific":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzBbkaJhJtA