May 24, 2007
Lisboa 20 Arte Contemporanea: LX 2.0 Project
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
Lisboa 20 Arte Contemporanea launches next Thursday, May 24, LX 2.0 Project's new commission: Manhă dos Mongolóides (Morning of the Mongoloids) by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries.
For LX 2.0, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries created the Portuguese version of Morning of the Mongoloids, the laughable, yet tragic (and extremely ironic) story of a white men that wakes up after a night of “drunken partying” to find himself no longer who he used to be. Without any motive or underlying logic, the man wakes up and gradually realizes he is Korean. He looks Korean, he speaks Korean and he lives in Seoul, when just the night before he was a white man living in a western country. The piece is a delightful insight on the prejudiced views towards Asian cultures and specially, Korean culture. Not only are we faced with the main character’s stereotypes of Asian people, as he gradually comes to terms with the improbable change, we, westerners, are confronted with our own biased views of the rest of the world. It is us, not “china men” who are being ironically portrayed. It is a mirror-like device and it is returning us our own prejudiced image of ourselves.
Posted by jo at May 24, 2007 09:28 AM
