exhibited as part of I have arrived at Yellow, Tuggeranong Arts Centre, April 2022
performed live at Live Dreams: Distance, Performance Space and Carriageworks, June 2022
Flesh lies underneath hair and skin, where trauma is hardly visible, yet dictates the body. In Nothing Happened Here 呢度冇事發生, I eat a substance made from a failed recipe of 腸粉 (steamed rice rolls) while singing and reciting public and personal memories of the 2019 movement in Hong Kong. I feed, recite, sing and spit pop songs, online comments and various ‘banned’ sources of the protests. I stuffs myself with the substance in deep desire to archive Hong Kong’s history within me, as a way to sustain the movement and be physically closer to home. Yet I constantly reject and spit out the truth as the body refuses to accept the erasure of Hong Kong. The voice is muffled by this substance, evoking self-censorship as protection from violence, grief and fear. The substance passes in and out of my mouth as Hong Kong’s political trauma corrodes in between bodies and societies. In the work, Hong Kong is found in personal memories, in seeking of online solidarity with the people. What does diaspora mean when place and culture is being erased from afar?