DSL Collection

With Wasting One's Spittle, first shown in Paris by Vice & Vertues in 1994, Shen Yuan uses a semantic process of transformation with the word, tongue and language. Seven frozen forms of tongues, reaching out of the walls slowly loose their liquid (wine and juice) by the melting effect. Seven classical Chinese spitting bowls collect the wasted liquid, as if to prevent the loss: The loss of being understood, the waste of excessively spoken words. After some hours, very slowly, but irreducibly, menacing kitchen knives appear out of these masses of frozen material, leaving the walls with shiny knives directed against the viewer. This very aggressive result of an effort, made ail day long for better understanding is the experience m0st immigrants must endure.