Perfect Pearl

Perfect Pearl is a poetic multimedia project about chasing love and the friction between dream and hard reality. ‘The picture perfect life’. The main subject is about chasing love or ‘the concept of love’ seen from a female perspective. What we desire or what we think we should desire. The story touches on existential solitude, the makeability of life and fleeting online personalities; how to emancipate and to find our own identity amidst the (lonely) crowd. Despite its cultural definitions and particularities, love is a universal desire that allowed me to identify with these Chinese women in their early twenties. My friendships resulted in a collaboration where I interweave my own poetic observations with the thoughts and feelings of my young Chinese friends. Pursuing your ‘perfect future dream’ feels like a dangerous game. Won't you always be disappointed if you keep chasing the ‘perfect picture’? How each individual shapes his life and expresses her existence is a source of lasting fascination for me. I started the project Perfect Pearl in 2018 during an Artist in Residence period in China. I came in contact with female students through Xiamen University. We talked about their loneliness, desires and doubts about relationships. Marrying or not marrying. Because many girls I befriended spoke little English, we used WeChat 'translate'. (WeChat is a popular messaging app in China; a combination of Twitter and Facebook called ‘Moments') In the book PERFECT PEARL I have collected personal texts that I found on 'Moments' or that they sent me directly. Film installation, photography and an artist book. https://vimeo.com/592694414/90630222e2