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These videos were made in Beijing in July 2019, while I was teaching a study abroad course for Texas State University.
The course was titled Storying Identity in Art & Culture. The goal was to explore identity as a construct built from the interdependent components of individual and cultural experience.
As an artist and teacher, working in China has been transformative. Introducing American students to China, especially young artists, writers, and teachers, has been equally transformative.
While making these videos I was thinking about the braided interdependencies — social, material, intellectual, emotional — that constitute human living and becoming. As with much of my other art work, these videos explore the poetics of experience rather than depicting or illustrating specific details, or certainties.
It's important to emphasize that this work was conceptualized and mostly produced outside of the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Perhaps ironically, however, without the enforced pause to daily life that the pandemic has brought, I would not have had the time to prepare the work for publication.
The videos were made and edited on my phone in China in July 2019. The final edits and website were made at home in Austin, Texas, in March 2020.
Thanks for looking at the China Suite.
Sean Justice
hellosean (at) seanjustice (dot) com
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