Face off
Cologne, Germany 2016
What is Asian and what is European?
One of my exchange project was to create a high-conceptual video attached into an installation and placed it in a relative stall. The idea was inspired by the different faces we had between asians and europeans.
As we put forward to understand a foreign country, an interesting observation came up which the europeans couldn't differentiate which asian country we alongs to, they thought we looked the same. And we, asians thought the same on europeans too.
We began to investigate whether such observation is a common thought by asking people around us to draw something. We asked them to describe an asians and an europeans with their hand sketches. The result was interesting. One of our europeans friend had rejected to draw, he said this could be stereotyping the races. To be honest, he might be correct, but if so much of us have such an issue, I think it is a good opportunity to highlight our observation, and let our audience to judge.
We then started thinking about the right place to put our installation. The reason for picking optical shop was that our whole idea was to showcase our observation on europeans and asians, whether it is right or wrong, we would like the audience to have a clearer view on our world, just like people are trying to get an eyeglasses to see things clearer. We knocked several doors around our city and present our idea to the shop owner.
Documentation video
Promotion video released on Facebook
We were so honourable to have VIU Eyewear to become our partner.
Final work, The high-conceptual video
We presented our idea in an humorous way with different objects to metaphor different parts of our face.