Notice of Missing Person(2017)

Installation in Buchanan Building:

In commemorating the Incident of Tian’anmen Square Student Protest, I am trying to bring back this unfinished messy history into popular consciousness as a way to sustain awareness of history by reliving it as experience. In order to do so, I selected 21 of the most outstanding student leaders in the protest event along with the Goddess of Democracy as the 22nd. Back in time, the 21 students were wanted for arrest by the government, and I took the headshots and the physical description direct from their wanted posters. From the “arrest warrant” to the “notice of missing person”, I am trying to play with a ideological transformation in order to give the students a just positioning in history. By installing the pamphlets onto a notice board in Buchanan Building, this context gives a sense of contemporaneity to the subject matter: nowadays, people in China are so indifferent with public affairs. Most of people though feel guilty of the evil of inaction, they have literally no other choice than being submissive to the extreme control of the government. Mom said:” don’t get involved, mind your own business.” But I have to say:” mom, freedom of speech is my own business, democracy and freedom is my own business; when injustice becomes the law, resistance becomes duty!”