FÉMININ
MASCULIN
TOURING
EXHIBIT

"As a gender-fluid woman, I love my body
and the identities that I could play with, however,
my unique soul beneath is not disturbed."

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ZOE WENG YU TONG

Taiwanese

Zoe has worked with grand masters and young talents in film industry for years, and she has moved to Paris for cinema study since 2014.

After being-known for her first short film "THE DOUBLE" in 2012, Zoe founded LA VIE CINE as her own visual art studio and continued to extend the possibility of multi-visual language. Her first online art zine "Culture Bastards" was launched in 2014. During her time as the chief editor for the zine and curator for short film screening platform, she worked with young Asian artists, and helped them to be seen internationally. Now, she is focusing on several feature film projects and the upcoming touring exhibition of 'FÉMININ MASCULIN'.

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BEHIND THE FLASH EXPO

The exhibition is dedicated to gender and sexual minorities.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

It all began with my short film, THE DOUBLE, in my early 20s. The film is about a pair of twins with opposite sexes, the boy is dead so the girl replaced him with his identity in order to live a normal life. I put the story under the Japanese colonial era to show the deep stress of Taiwanese to fit in the societal role, and how the traditional society sees and treats different sexes in different ways. Gender, geographical belongingness and self identity are my longtime art inspiration. Traveling between Taiwan and France as a visual artist has bond these questions together and give me more strength to explore the unknown true-self.

Taiwan is a land with complicated political history. This has been reflected in our shooting location in Taipei, which are all culturally influence by either Japanese colonial era or Chinese immigrants. I also have a deep confusion about my gender since teenage years. I could only try to find the answer of these questions through creating art. But Paris is a precious experience to me in my late 20s. Europe is an outerspace for me as an Asian, as men and women here have totally different ways of living. I’ve learned and found a way to balance my life between Taiwan and France, which inspired me a lot.

The main concept of this exhibition is that no matter what the roles you play, each one of the characters that you play will all resonate and link to your unique soul beneath. The style of photography also reflects my gender identity transformation between cities. One is artificial, decorative, haughty and feminine. The other one is more natural, powerful, refined and masculine. All the costumes were from my own wardrobe, and I also do the styling myself. Every part of the work is very intimate for me.

A movable flow is the correct phrase to describe my current life. This is why I choose ‘Motion Picture’ as my career. Still photography is like a film on paper to me. I use slideshows, title cards and GIFs to bring these still images to life. For the narrative, I use first person stance in the beginning, then second person, then omniscience. This is my growing experience in my 20s. Everyone should learn to be objective from subjective, considering a larger dimension up to universe.

At last, thanks to all my friends who accompanied me throughout this artistic journey. This flash expo in Paris is only a beginning, like how Paris means to me, a magic streak, and the timeline of the exhibition will extend to Taipei a few months later. Stay tuned, we’ll have another exhibition there.

MAR 2017,PARIS

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