Sending the Millet, 1 on 1 Performance, Cable Factory, Helsinki, Finland, 2024
The audience enters a semi-sheltered, translucent space to engage in an intimate conversation with me about a scar on their body and its story. Participants may choose to reveal the exact scar or indicate its approximate location beneath their clothing.
After listening to each participant's narrative, I gently and repeatedly scatter foxtail millet over their scars. The application varies for each individual, reflecting their unique bodily stories and relationship with the scar. The performance concludes when I perceive a subtle shift in the participant's body, mind, breath, or in our shared atmosphere.
Foxtail millet, one of the world's oldest crops and a staple in ancient China, holds significance in my hometown near the Tibetan Plateau, where it was used in daily cleansing and exorcism rituals. In this work, each participant's body receives foxtail millet as a gift, believed to bring healing and purification. The millet used is freshly imported from China by myself and fellow Chinese students studying in Finland.
This ongoing process spans two days, with each session lasting approximately 5-10 minutes. As audiences come and go, a layer of yellowish millet gradually accumulates on the performance space floor. Some millet clings to participants' shoes and clothes, accompanying them on their journeys to other parts of the world.
photo 1 by Qiong Zhang
photo 2-5 by Jing Xie