The documentation of the performance is found in the installation piece titled: “Please keep a safe […]: Chin Chin - Grass Jelly Drinks” (2020) presented at the NARS Foundation in October 2020: The work was produced at the end of the first wave of the COVID pandemic amid the US election. It juxtaposed the social distancing notice from the MTA of New York to a Taiwanese drink packaging found in Chinatown. The brand of the drink: “Chin Chin” translates as “kiss kiss” and expresses this idea of Asian scapegoating through the idea of the “Chinese kiss” as the previously sitting president referring to the pandemic as the “Chinese virus” slur in the media.

Playing within the installation was a documentation, in 2.5 dimensions volumetric capture, of a performance of me gently swaying the nearby grass. The short looped video available through a downloadable augmented reality application comes from this idea of remoteness and alienation as Asians, in general, were scapegoated as a vector of disease while suffering humiliation and more by other citizens through systemic racism during the pandemic. Hence, the performance came to be as this ghostly being, unable to fully relate or integrate with its surroundings, swaying the nearby grass in vain in a continuous loop.

The performance as seen through the mobile application:

vimeo.com/468390300