When I was in high school I was asked to model for a photography project about cardinal sins. During its presentation the student was asked by his teachers why was I chosen and he said it was because I looked ugly. Three years ago I was commissioned to make a public art piece for a prominent shopping mall in Lisbon. After the project was pitched to her, the head of marketing was confused. She was annoyed that my work – and, indeed, I – did not look Portuguese enough. Last summer at a dinner with some artist friends, one person turned to me and said that I was successful because I was a “chinoca” [chink] and identity politics are trendy right now. The most terrifying realisation I have had is that none of these people intended to offend me. In their eyes it was just a matter of fact that...I, as a first generation Portuguese and a child of Chinese immigrants, didn't fit their standards of beauty, nationality or personhood. That I was a monster, an alien, an industry fetish.
Given that the peer who used a racist slur to describe me and my practice is active within the local art community, I couldn’t continue with the exhibition without taking action. So, I set out to look into the state of racial politics in Portugal today. I wanted to understand how a self described antiracist and anti-fascist, who attended the local BLM march and ticks all the boxes of millennial ‘leftism’, gets to use a racial slur so effortlessly in private. If this term was not meant to be offensive, then why does he get to evacuate the meaning from these words? Why does he have the power to displace history? Why does he have the privilege to assign identity?
Bruno Zhu lives and works between Amsterdam and Viseu. Recent projects include presentations at Fri Art Kunsthalle in Fribourg, UKS in Oslo, ICA Cinema 3 in London, Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, Antenna Space in Shanghai and Kunsthalle Lissabon in Lisbon. Zhu is a member of A Maior, a curatorial program set in a home furnishings and clothing store in Viseu, Portugal.
Imágenes de la Exposición
Image courtesy of the artist and Sismógrafo, Porto. Photos by Filipe Braga
Entrada actualizada el el 14 jun de 2021
¿Te gustaría añadir o modificar algo de este perfil?
