Stop! Surfaced and Zone Out performance series

For autumn and winter, performance series Stop! Surfaced and Zone Out of Long March Independent Project invites three artists(-collectives), Tan Yingjie, Beio, and mollyrainmore.org, to explore their points on how individuals suspended and break the stability.

Stop! Surfaced and Zone Out refers to a metaphor shared by all three groups of artists—the situation in suspense of each individual—a topic that never seems to go out of date. The immersive “normality” of life further blurring and camouflaging the dislocation between individuals and the system. Text, music, theatrical performance, body language and meditation gather in the performance series, breaking down the stability of space and time. 

Together with the production crew and the cast, artist Tan Yingjie directs his first experimental theatre Don't Let Things Come to You with art installations. From a real story that Tan's mobile phone was stolen some years ago, six characters involve in the “incident”. With the abstraction of the box installation and the presence of the actors, it recollects and explores how we should look at “escape”.

The second section is a three-act performance by artist Beio, In the Wilderness. Tedious even repetitive metropolitan work and life have alienated the spirit from the body, and further downgraded the body into flesh. Inspired by the novel No Longer Human by Japanese author Osamu Dazai, the first scene of In the Wilderness by artist Beio discusses how a modern man gets obsessed with the body, disciplines the body and ultimately disengages from the body. The final act is inspired by the story of Inanna’s descent into the underworld in Sumerian religion. It is one of the key text related with Beio’s recent practice, about the descending state of human being, how life have alienated the spirit from the body, and further downgraded the body into flesh.

ME FOR YOU AND FUN FOR ME is a three week long performance installation run by mollyrainmore.org, providing service one person at a time.The performance takes place in a constructed space with a footprint of 40 sq. meters. Upon entering the space, the audience is expected to experience a narrow walk in a claustrophobic space, a short period of confinement, and a guided meditation to relive the incarceration within a controlled lucid dream of institutional space. While waiting for your reserved service, the waiting hall outside the installation features a debut of three short films of the artists. Accompanied by intrusive sound field and dyslectic visual, the films are made of questions, interrogations, satires, and advertorial texts; and all the films are voiced by AI voices of Apple accessibility service (Ava, Karen, Joelle, and Stephanie).

Tan Yingjie, born in Hunan in 1992, graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2016, and currently lives and works in Beijing. Tan Yingjie's creative work primarily focuses on spatial installations and involves various media, including video, performance art, text, and graphics. This approach extends to the sensory and tactile aspects of the body within these spaces. His recent work has been mainly centered on the deconstructive and regenerative narrative within real imagery, creating new images through folding, flipping, and displacement. Recent solo projects include: The Stolen Shell (2022), Hunsand Space (Beijing); Blank Elements (2019), Hunsand Space (Beijing)/UCCA—Large Exhibition Room; Snake and Ladder (2019), CLC Gallery; Unreliable Narrator (2017), Taikang Space, etc.

Beio, artist and interface engineer, lives and works in Beijing. His creative effort  engages dance, performance, theater, script writing and stage acting. His works have appeared on the legendary stage of Club Berghain in Berlin and other prestigious venues such as the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Drama Festival in Tokyo and Vienna Festival.

mollyrainmore.org is a collective artist identity. we create images, installations, performances, sounds, and short films with text. we create moments of sentiments in a political world. Member a: Guo Tianyu, BA in Economics, Boston College; MA in Humanities, University of Chicago. Member b: Zhang Yiren, BA in Philosophy, Studio Art, Boston College.