As part of my exploration into identity, I felt it important to find how I relate to aspects of my Chinese heritage. Unable to read and speak Chinese, I was limited to English-language and visual resources. I thought it would be interesting to make works in response to some Chinese artists.

In my research, I came across Zhang Huan’s To Add A Metre To An Anonymous Mountain, 1995. I had come across his work before and this image appealed to me. Huan’s work pushes the physical limits of the mind and body in a way that is both frightening and awe-inspiring, whilst also managing to weave in the political and cultural context of being Chinese.

The title refers to an old saying: "Beyond the mountain, there are more mountains...” Of it Huan says, “It is about humility. Climb this mountain and you will find an even bigger mountain in front of you. It's about changing the natural state of things, about the idea of possibilities."

Reading more about the context of this piece, I discovered Yuanmingyuan, an artist community on the site of the old Ming Dynasty summer palace. It was described as a place where artists felt a sense of belonging in a society that otherwise brandished them as ‘hooligans’ for their bohemian lifestyle. The use of naked flesh in Huan’s piece was seen as the "ultimate symbol of artistic autonomy". (The Chinese Art Book, Phaidon.) The village was closed by the government in 1993.

I saw two parallels between the HK pro-democracy protestors and Huan’s work: both use the physical presence of one’s body to convey a political message, and in both a group of people are condemned for not following the views of the Chinese government. This response piece appropriates Zhang Huan’s composition and title from To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain, 1995 to reference this parallel.

For the 2019 Mid-Autumn Festival, Hong Kong protesters formed a glowing human-chain across the Lion Rock to mark the second anniversary of the pro-democracy demonstrations. This imagery also inspired my response.