2022

Performative action, video, photography

Location: along 14th Street, Manhattan

Event: Art In Odd Places 2022: STORY

Photographer: Winnie Su
Video Producer: Winnie Su

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Articles:

"A Weekend in the World"  by Maxwell Williams

"The 14th Street Path of Empathy" by Harley J. Spiller aka Inspector Collector

"To Tell Their Story" by Eliza Luce

"On 14th Street, A Weaving of Stories"  by Matthew López-Jensen

“What’s Your Story?” at Bureau of General Service – Queer Division" by Martha Wilson

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Breathing in New York is a series exploring the connection I imagined between three seemingly unrelated but concurrent events that took place in New York in March 2020: the mask mandate resulting from the outbreak of COVID-19, the plastic bag ban, and my personal experience of race in New York City. 

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One day, while walking through Manhattan wearing a mask, two white men passed by and called me “Chinese, mask.” It felt strange and confused rather than directly threatening—especially because I am not Chinese.

This was the first time I experienced a palpable form of discrimination. At that moment, I didn’t even recognize it as racial discrimination, simply because I had never encountered it before. My complex feelings stemmed not only from the discrimination itself but also from the complicated political, historical, and cultural relationship between Taiwan and China. The term “Chinese” carries multiple, ambiguous meanings, making it a complicated and sensitive subject for me as a Taiwanese person.

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At the same time, plastic bags from Key Food supermarkets filled the cupboards of my dormitory in Brooklyn. Key Food, the closest grocery store to my dorm, provided plastic bags with every purchase, and over time, they accumulated like worthless trash. Then, in March 2020, New York State implemented a plastic bag ban. Suddenly, I realized that I would not get any new plastic bags from Key Food. In that moment, the plastic bags in my cupboard transformed from trash to treasure! I couldn't help but wonder, would my identity, too, change from valueless to priceless at a certain moment?

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Therefore, I thought that if I covered my head, people wouldn't know my identity. I did a seemingly ridiculous and a little sad action of covering my head with a plastic bag printed with Key Food’s colorful logo to hide my identity that, at the same time, could be seen as protection against COVID-19. Wearing a plastic bag might be not only for hiding my identity but also to avoid being defined by others. I wanted and tried to reclaim the right to define myself. I am who I am.

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在《Breathing in New York》系列中，我想像了三個看似無關但同時發生在2020年三月紐約的事件之間的聯繫：因COVID-19爆發而導致的戴口罩令、紐約州發起的塑料袋禁令以及我在紐約市遭遇關於種族的個人經歷。有一次我戴著口罩走在曼哈頓的街上，兩位白人男子從我身邊走過，朝我的方向喊「Chinese、mask」，我感到很奇怪，因為我不是中國人。

此刻，我沒有感受到危險，反而覺得奇怪和困惑。這是我第一次經歷明顯的歧視，當時，我甚至沒有意識到這是種族歧視，因為我以前從未經歷過。我的複雜感受不只是因為種族歧視，還有臺灣與中國在政治、歷史、文化等方面的特殊關係。“Chinese”一詞的多重含義對我這個台灣人來說是一個複雜而敏感的話題。

關於Key Food超市的塑膠袋，它們塞滿我在布魯克林的宿舍櫥櫃，當時距離學校宿舍最近的超市就是Key Food，每一次購物就多了一些塑膠袋，一文不值的它們像垃圾一樣被我塞在櫥櫃裡。直到2020年三月，紐約州政府頒布塑膠袋禁令，所有的超市不能再提供塑膠製的袋子給顧客，忽然間我意識到我不會再得到任何一個新的Key Food超市的塑膠袋，櫥櫃裡的它們在那一刻起從垃圾變為寶物。我不禁想，是否我的身分也會在某個瞬間從無價(valuelss)變成無價(priceless)呢？

因此，我想如果我把頭蒙起來，人們就無法知道我的身份。我做了一個看似可笑又有點悲傷的動作，用一個印有Key Food彩色標籤的塑料袋套住我的頭來隱藏我的身份，這同時可以被視為對COVID-19的保護。戴上塑料袋不僅是為了隱藏我的身份，也是為了避免被被別人定義，我想試圖取回定義自己的權利，我就是我。

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