The Dream that Flocks South《睡去依依随雁断》

Lucy XC Liu Solo Exhibition at Acentric Space, Shanghai, China, Oct. 2021

I am performing inside my immersive sculpture during the exhibition.

“I made near 100m2 of handmade paper from the Qing dynasty banned novel The Dream of the Red Chamber. I reference the line “The land is abluted by snowfall” from this book, by covering the floor with large sheets, and suspend dreamy constructions from the ceiling. On the exhibition opening, I invited the audience to tread into the work, tearing and soiling it. In the sculpture, I did a Kunqu Opera performance of the love story The Peony Pavilion, which is an important reference in The Dream of the Red Chamber. The shattered dream of romance in our performance is metaphorical to Chinese literati’s shattered dream of culture.”

The young lady Du Liniang drifts into a dream in which she has an affair with Liu Mengmei, a scholar who approached her with a willow branch in hand.

When Du Liniang wakes from her dream, heartbroken, she falls ill and dies. Her ghost came back and sought the world of the living for Liu Mengmei. The strength of her pursuit merited her resurrection from the underworld.

Exhibition Introduction

The Dream that Flocks South is an immersive sculpture & Kunqu performance. I made near 100m2 of handmade paper from the Qing dynasty banned novel The Dream of the Red Chamber. I reference the line “The land is abluted by snowfall” from this book, by covering the floor with large sheets, and suspend dreamy constructions from the ceiling. On the exhibition opening, I invited the audience to tread into the work, tearing and soiling it. In the sculpture, I did a Kunqu Opera performance of the love story The Peony Pavilion, which is an important reference in The Dream of the Red Chamber. The shattered dream of romance in our performance is metaphorical to Chinese literati’s shattered dream of culture.

In “An Interrupted Dream”, the young lady Du Liniang falls asleep in the peony pavilion, and dreams of the scholar Liu Mengmei who approaches her with a willow branch in hand. They have an affair in the garden. When Du Liniang wakes and realizes that all is a dream, she is heartbroken and falls ill.“The Departing Soul” depicts her death. These two acts hold important metaphorical value when they are referenced in The Dream of the Red Chamber. On the floor covered by an erased and illegible version of this book, we will guide the audience to different spaces in the paper sculpture, using the switch of space and scene to indicate the opposition between dream and reality.

Political oppression in history marginalized Chinese literati and attempted to destroy works of literature like The Dream of the Red Chamber and The Peony Pavilion, because they appreciate the desires in human nature. Writing about desire is already an act of revolt, compared to remaining silent. Chinese literati's dream of culture is comparable to a dream of romance. It is deemed to be shattered by reality.

Performance Video & Virtual Tour

Lucy XC Liu as Lady Du Liniang, Jesse Jiaxin Wang as the Scholar Liu Mengmei (Select high res in settings for best effect)

Welcome to my studio! This is how I spent 3 months making paper for my immersive sculpture.

I am a dangerous woman artist and thinker(with paper in my hair and clothes) proudly constructing gigantic immersive sculptures!