sister destroyer lover — Catalina Ouyang

sister, destroyer, lover
Trestle Projects
May 20 - June 14, 2017

In the Chinese folktale Legend of the White Snake, two serpent-goddess-demon best friends see their friendship threatened when the White Snake falls in love with a hapless human man and, to Green Snake’s dismay, decides to surrender her immortality in order to be with him. This demon, for some dumb reason, wants to become human—however! A sexually frustrated monk, disapproving of the cross-species affair, does his best to sabotage the romance. Epic battles ensue, with Little Green self-denyingly coming to her sister White’s rescue. Is this a story about queer empowerment or hetero-romantic compromise? Love puts blinders on us all, and transformation is seductive even when it borders on dysmorphia. But perhaps it is possible to interrupt this inevitable narrative with a gust of collaborative resistance; at some point one should [at least try to] stop making the wrong sacrifices. sister, destroyer, lover is a hypothesis for an alternative scenario where one’s state of being is thrown into gray flux and power is distributed differently, even if it is with ambiguous efficacy.

Featuring weapons made by Dominic Chambers, Deo Deiparine, Ryan Doyle, Tenaya Izu, Cole Lu, Sachi Nagase, Grace Park, Marina Peng, Jack Radley, Dani Radoshevich, Shane Rossi, Carla Steppan, Emma Sulkowicz, LA Warman and Cherry Xie.