Performance (EN)
Shanzhai Lyric: Hedge Poem

The New York-based artist duo Shanzhai Lyric presents a poetry reading with contextualizing research drawn from the words printed on found garments that comprise the installation Incomplete Poem (hedge) (2023). The work features a wooden structure draped in a growing collection of slogan T-shirts – forming an excerpt of what the group considers an ever-unfurling poem. Derived from the Chinese term meaning ‘mountain fortress’, Shanzhai has come to signify counterfeit or imitative production while retaining the subversive spirit of the subcultures that emerge around it.

Through live performance, Shanzhai Lyric gives voice to the garments, treating them as carriers of poetry that challenges the norms of authorship and ownership. The text – often strange, humorous or unexpectedly poignant – become part of a living, circulating archive. Spoken aloud, they form a chorus of repetition, (mis)translation and repurposing, revealing how language is shaped and reshaped through global production, circulation and exchange. Words oscillate between conveying meaning and serving as ornamentation, forming new poetic arrangements with creative potential.

The performance is free with a valid exhibition ticket.

Shanzhai Lyric

Shanzhai Lyric (est. 2015) is a collective producing a body of research that focuses on ‘radical logistics and linguistics through the prism of technological aberration and nonofficial cultures’. They are currently in residence at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, where they are researching a colony of wild parrots, the original mimicry artists. Shanzai Lyric consider themselves a roving archive.