Chenxin(Zacky) Zhao
Reverie on the Sofa: On the Possibility of Performance at Home Post-Pandemic
Summary
In the convulsions of the pandemic, the body emerged as a locus of rupture and revelation. Stripped of its quotidian trappings, the home became an arena of isolation and self-preservation, a hermetic space where the geometry of survival usurped the ethics of kinship. This research plunges into the viscera of post- pandemic existence, probing the intersections of body, space, and performance through a lens both visceral and sublime. The once-sacred intimacy of the home, now a stark fortress against the invisible scourge, reveals the abject truths of our corporeal being. Through theoretical exegesis and participatory workshops, it seeks to unearth the latent potential for site-specific performances that echo the haunting resonance of these times.
Participants, marooned in their sanctuaries, become protagonists in a theater of the absurd, their bodies and homes the stages upon which new narratives of survival and solidarity are enacted. This research navigates the labyrinthine interplay of isolation and community, mapping the psychogeography of a world in suspended animation. It invokes a collective reverie where the banal and the sublime converge, where the geometry of space intersects with the alchemy of the body. By facilitating workshops across urban enclaves, the study invites participants to transmute their fragmented experiences into a shared poetic language, revealing the profound interconnectedness of isolated individuals in a chorus of resilience and despair.
This research project explores the political potential of the home as a site for new forms of performance. It posits that the domestic sphere, through its reconfiguration during the pandemic, has become a site of profound existential and performative inquiry. By foregrounding the theatricality inherent in everyday life, this study offers a path towards collective healing and resilience, embracing the chaos and uncertainty of our times with a defiant and transcendent spirit.
Keywords: Home anthropology; Site-specific performance; Body ; Post-pandemic; Affect
Additional info
Chenxin (Zacky) Zhao, born in 2001, is a performance artist and researcher based in London and Hangzhou. Zacky’s work primarily focuses on site-specific performances and socially engaged arts, with a particular emphasis on the political potential of the body in the post-pandemic era. His research delves into the internal power dynamics and external boundaries of the body, investigating the transgressive possibilities between private (domestic) and public spaces.
Zacky’s practice is deeply influenced by his background in anthropology and political philosophy, shaped significantly by the post-pandemic context. Currently, he is pursuing a project titled Reverie on the Sofa: On the Possibility of Performance at Home Post-Pandemic, which explores the poetic potential of bodily connections to form communities within the framework of necropolitics.
In addition to his artistic practice, Zacky has contributed to several publications, including Writing to 9189km, the poetry collection Cultural Disasters, and the pandemic archives Y19-Y22_[RRA.1-7]. As a researcher, his interviews and podcasts have been featured on major art platforms.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I extend my heartfelt gratitude to my tutor, Dr. Esther Teichmann, and to Prof. Gemma Blackshaw and Jonathan Miles for their generous support and guidance. They have taught me that literature, especially poetry, provides a powerful narrative for life and the world. In the space that poetry reveals, humans and other things alike are laid bare, with everything they endure thoroughly exposed. The art of words reaches our hearts more directly than many concrete forms of art. It is, in fact, closer to life than life itself.
Thank you always for everything to my parents. From a young age, I have always been a passionate person. I believe that life is an adventure. When I was still naive about the world, my father often taught me how to be sincere and kind to people, even though he rarely did so himself. My mother always shaped my spirit with her strength and rationality, so that when I suffered the pains of life, I remained as calm as she did. My father and mother gave birth to me. The former told me that life is sincere, and the latter told me that life is courageous. They constitute the dual themes of my life: beauty and fulfillment.
My deepest gratitude to all the friends who have lent their aid to my research project. These relationships are my treasures, and I hold a special thanks to my beloved partner and collaborator on multiple endeavors, Alessandro Todisco. In the raw and potent vitality we share, we transcend the ordinary limits of the human spirit, unearth the profound meanings of existence, and weave the intricate threads that bind all things. Through this, I have rediscovered the joy of embracing art as a lifelong passion.
Up to this point, my life has been a bare minimum consensus reached with the world. I was once many other lives, their grand totality only now coming into my faint understanding. For this, I have given all my sincerity, restraint, and courage. I am aware that anything unattainable can only reach its end in places it never envisioned, in ways it never imagined: this is the essence of the artwork, independent of its creator, and indifferent to the world it inhabits.
Zhao, C. (2024). Reverie on the sofa: On the possibility of performance at home post-pandemic (MRes's thesis). Royal College of Art.
Chapter I
Our Collective Memory's Marriage With This Era's Church, Is Destined to Become a Widow in the Next Era
Zacky, Zhao. & Neo Gao. (2023). The Night Crusier [Performance & Sound design]. London St.John’s Church (UK).
As a central component of my practice, creative modes of writing are woven throughout this thesis, shifting the text register from the theoretical to the poetic, emotional and abstract. These poems were all created during the pandemic lockdown, a time when discourse was strictly controlled, and even online discourse was under surveillance. We couldn't discuss anything negative about the pandemic. Poetry became a secret outlet—a means of escape where metaphors could evade scrutiny, offering a hidden path to freedom. Zhao, Z. (2022). MARRIAGE.
Zacky, Zhao. & Neo Gao. (2024). The Night Crusier. The Modern showroom(UK).
Chapter II
My Body Is a Prison of Pain, But I Also Love It& Want It to Matter Politically
Zhao.Z. & Todisco.A. (2024). Second Skin. Home (UK).
This poem was written on my last day of confinement at home. My body is finally about to gain freedom tomorrow. It also serves as a response to the question posed in the previous poem "A FLY"—"how then shall we be peeled away from the world?" Zhao, Z. (2023). Answer.
Zacky, Zhao. (2023). CM310 (IL-4Ra antibody). Hospital (China).
Chapter III
Broken Images Under the Beating Sun,No Shelter from Dead Trees& No Relief from Crickets
Zacky, Zhao. (2024). Reverie on the Roof. Home (UK).
Binyu,L & Zacky, Zhao. (2024). Lausanne (Switzerland).
