Portrait of Xirou Xiao
[Interviewer]
Chunzi Wu
Leo L
[Proofreader]
Susy Ye
Janelle Siu
01 FEB 2021
Well, no matter for the Spanish or Chinese audience, our Crab Project is quite original. About the reception, the feedback we have received so far is quite positive, many people think that our project is rather attractive and would like to know more about our histories and even personal lives. Either our project’s profile or the artistic expressions can be considered quite tempting.
Before coming to Spain, I had never thought about my cultural identity. I wasn’t quite mature by that time. I used to ponder how to return to my own traditions or in other words, how to prove I am a real Chinese by satisfying this unreal oriental fantasy of the people. This was the first phase, I also call it the “initial language forming phase” because after all, I had to adapt to the local linguistic context when I first arrived. Later, when I became more mature, my attitude tremendously changed realizing that all those Chinese identity or culture is something that others expect from me, but not what I really want. So, because of that kind of expectation from the major Western audience, the common impression about Chinese culture is related to traditional art such as calligraphy, dance, and so on. Precisely due to this sort of “stereotype” towards the Chinese artistic community, I'm therefore willing to apply performance art to convey a sense of diversity and contemporaneity.
I‘m constantly asking myself, to what extent I want to “take advantage of” my Chinese female identity. Receiving so many invitations at first, I was kind of satisfied. Moreover, it's easy for me to “feel good about myself”. Then little by little I start to ask what is the real purpose of these collaborations. Before every invitation, now I will ask “why and for what do you want to cooperate with the Chinese community and with me?”. Through responses to such basic questions, I will consider whether it is worth working with them and think about how I can improve my work. It's another process of situated practice. As a case in point, a young stage artist once responded, “I hope there would be Chinese and black people in the third part of my work, because they do not appear in the previous two parts...” For invitations like this we have no interest; Another possibility is that the institutions themselves may not be aware of what “the Chinese community” is about. In this case, I will decide, with the time and money permitted, whether I am willing to do “compulsory pedagogy” (sometimes I guide them more patiently, sometimes I express my opinion directly) and to what extent, so that they could clarify their true intentions. In my experience, these institutions tend to prioritize their own “interests”. From a “business model” perspective, it is understandable that these cultural institutions want to get a “maximum benefit”, but the problem is precisely that these centers would like their projects and actions to obtain universal value by using “politically right” terms. “But will this exert a real influence on the Chinese community?” In many cases, the projects that they launch are nothing more than “pretended interest” and “frivolous action” to beautify their own political image. As an example, a renowned local art museum asked me twice to be an intercultural mediator, expecting that I could bring more Chinese visitors to the museum. Last year I organized a group of some 20 people to visit the space, but the process and content turned out to be very unsatisfactory. They didn´t design specific content and make corresponding changes for this group, nor did they care about its true visiting experience, but simply assume that the participation of Chinese minorities would be rather great. This year they found me again, but then I put forward my opinion, hoping to design with their staff suitable content for the Chinese visitors instead of using directly the existing model. Of course, the cost of designing such a program will be more.
This might have something to do with my personal way of perceiving the world and positioning myself. How do I position myself? Do I do it all alone, or by observing the outside world? For me, this is more of a mutual nurturing thing. For example, by receiving information from the external world, I react, while my reaction could even change the outside world, thus I receive and give output again. My current creation is highly related to the social context and the environment that surrounds me (time, space, cross-cultural context, etc.), in other words, it has this nature in situ. Therefore, it would be invalid if I “copy” what I am doing in Spain and “paste” it directly into Chinese society. To remove this “incompatible” feeling so that the Western experience could serve the Chinese context, I would need to reposition myself. I tend to stay sensitive, curious, and also alert to the social environment and the scenario. I don’t want to be a “highbrow” artist. I tend to think about how the social mechanism works, what I want to create in this society, and even if my creation could change the outside world or bring something new.
For example, to me, feminism itself is a Western concept. It is not allowed in China like any other political movements. All the members of our project have been talking about our insecurity and hesitancy about this concept of “Western feminism.” Currently we all agree that the Crab Project is not a feminist group, but a female group, or more especifically, a “creative” group of collective performance. In the contemporary Western context, way too easily we might be misled by the mainstream “sensational”speech, and lose our independent thinking. Not knowing where one's true interest lies or focusing too much on what most people say, being extremely politically appropriate yet not sincere, one can easily be misled, because for me, the argument of the activists is usually compelling and exciting, or even “eloquent” and “sensational”, giving the majority of the public “an illusion of power and freedom”. Without independent and critical thinking, it is easy to fade into emptiness. So, for example, the political demands that we are making in “Liwai”, far from being just ideological, are implemented from a more practical perspective: the work we do is of “first necessity”, such as accompaniment for Chinese families in need, free service for women suffering from gender violence, intercultural mediation in schools and hospitals, free conferences and courses, etc.
The first sentence is a reflection about my identity since our first act in 2018: What does it mean to be a young Chinese woman in Spain? No one will ask me which country I'm from before coming abroad. These repeated questions from the outside world made me think: Well, I am Chinese, but what does this mean? And I also threw my personal doubts into the community. The collective may share this identity, but everyone's perception will be different. After our first act, we started to discuss whether it is necessary to keep talking about the Chinese women identity, so we had debate and also dialogues: Some people think it's necessary because this is our characteristic; others say there is no need to emphasize it now that we already look like this. Such positioning will even hinder the communication with other communities. It also troubled me for a long time. I would think about whether we should use it or not. And then at another stage (2019), I found out that I had fallen into this trap of duality. But in fact, there is no need to place one over another. We are always in the process of transformation and exploration. So when I pulled myself out, I no longer took it as a problem but something full of possibilities. What does it mean to be and not to be? What does it mean to use and get rid of this identity? The idea of “middle zone”, which is mentioned frequently by the famous curator Hou Hanru, can reflect the location range where our project is situated. There is no need to feel obliged to take this or remove that, but to make both of them stand at the same time, and to think about how we could play better these concepts. This kind of “initiative” can be considered as the premise and the key to our actions.