The creative framework of Risks of Being too Bright-sided about Gift-giving is collaboratively developed by four artists in New York. At the beginning of the process, each artist brought in a gift; reflected through the artists’ diverse cultural backgrounds and experiences, the gifts were reinterpreted and thoroughly investigated. Over the course of the investigation, each artist came up with descriptive sentences, responding to and opening up another line of interpretation for cultural differences through the approach of addition and layering. From this, the artists finally found a concept that would allow maximum creative freedom while encompassing all four’s imaginings about gift-giving: the common physical material of paper cards. Each artist will use cards in their individual creation, developing a connectable yet independent system of works, spread out like sprawling vines.

This video performance not only elaborates upon my extrapolations on this idea of gift/cards, but also connects to the own experiences of receiving a ticket on the subway and the repeated malfunctions of my subway card. In the piece, I swipes beautiful cards repeatedly at the turnstiles, but is unable to go through. It is the obsessive action of an impossible mission: while the swiping motion is the same, the cards can never be read and recognized by the system. The humorous repetition of the action, in juxtaposition to the derailed mechanism and the inherent disparity of the other, suggest the other’s cultural disparity of wanting to become part of the system, but ultimately existing outside of it.