Dream Sequence 1 — Snails’ Transporter
Belfast, UK: 2024
Performed as part of Common Groundwork, a China–UK artistic exchange project presented by Bbeyond and supported by the British Council. I was invited as an artist from China to participate through performance and artist sharing.
50 min
2024
Writer’s Square, Belfast, UK
Work Description：
Dream Sequence 1 — Snails’ Transporter took place on a small patch of grass within the urban space of Belfast. The work begins with a body entering the site in office clothes, carrying a suitcase. As the artist moves toward this small piece of nature within the city, these layers of office clothing are gradually removed; with them, the codes of urban life are also shed, and the body gradually reveals a more primal state. A chair is dug out of the grass, and snails from a box are invited to crawl slowly across the body before being transferred onto a tree. The green traces they leave behind turn the body into a temporary surface of passage, where the act of “transporting” unfolds between body, nature, and the structures of the city. In the end, the chair is returned to the ground, the body puts on the office clothes again, disappearing back into the crowd.
Process：
I enter with a suitcase, dressed in office clothes.
Moving toward a small piece of nature within the city,
the body gradually shifts back toward a more elemental state.
A chair is dug out from the grass.
I open the suitcase, put on green lipstick,
and prepare the materials inside.
Waiting slowly, I allow the snails in the box
to crawl onto my body.
Green traces begin to appear.
I then transfer them from my body to the tree.
Two snails fall asleep.
While waiting, I eat an apple.
I try to wake them by offering small pieces of it,
but they remain deeply asleep.
I place them beneath the tree.
The chair is returned to the ground.
The apple core goes back into the suitcase.
Stepping out of the grass,
I put my office clothes back on piece by piece,
and disappear into the crowd.
