Inviting you to my virtual performances~
Dear friends,
(still from VR light show "Beyond Garden")
In this time of bleakness, I would like to invite you to a light show "Beyond Garden"! I collaborated with artist Dyon Jong on this piece, which pays tribute to the upcoming mid-autumn festival. It is now live as a part of LA Design Festival!
“Beyond Garden” is an immersive, online light installation that seeks to recreate the organic spatial spontaneity, proximity and connection of experiencing art together - within the confines of a browser."
It is a meditative virtual reality landscape, echoing with poems whispered in Chinese and English by me, Jiaoyang Li, and Carlina Duan. It is live from now until Sunday! Register here to enter the space, I hope it brings you tranquility. (please give it up to 3 mins to load).
***
(still from "In America, You Are Asked Why Are Leaves Green")
Back in March, I made a video piece titled "In America, You Are Asked Why Are Leaves Green" from footage I secretly filmed a year ago in the factories near my mother's hometown of Jiangxi. At the time, I had been working on a sci-fi screenplay with the NYU Production Lab, where I was dreaming up a world of factory workers on strike in a near-dystopic future.
At the factories I visited, I encountered scenes that were beyond the metaphorical — elderly women sewing American flags onto an assembly line of cowboy boots, an infinite line up of ski boots molded in the summer heat..
(still from "In America, You Are Asked Why Are Leaves Green")
The video was created alongside a poem, and then my collaborator Jiaoyang and I created a performance alongside it. (This is the reason we started making work together as the duo "Silk-worm Pupas")
The poem and video were recently published in the new online issue of "Secret Boyfriend" from the Black Warrior Review, excerpted here:
I will be screening and reading from it next Tuesday Sept 29 at 6PM CST, along with all these amazing contributors. I will be reading first, right at 6PM CST / 7 PM EST, so you are welcome to come on time :)
Sign up for the reading here.
***
Since our initial performance in Anne Carson's class in March, our piece has been selected for this year's The Immigrant Artist Biennial. Jiaoyang and I have been re-imagining and exploring the constraints of VR and performance in our new, online world.
While we were initially slated to perform & screen the video in NYC's EFA Project Space, we have now turned to an online platform called FrameVR, an immersive online VR platform. Our performance for the Biennial is slated for November, but we will be doing a debut run tomorrow (Friday Sept. 25th 8:30 PM EST) as part of the BOND performance Festival. Viewers can livestream on Youtube: @ BOND Festival.
(Bond Festival poster)
I look forward to seeing you in our silky, wormy world.
***
In case you missed my conversation with poet in exile Abdul Haidiri and his moving reading last week, here's the recording. We raised $250 for him, if you would like to contribute, please reach out to me!
Take care, my friends, talk soon ~
love,
JinJin
P.S. my chapbook (!!) will be available for pre-orders next week! Ahhh, stay tuned :)