Studies on Smiling II (Black Odonata), 2019
Studies on Smiling explores the politics of the smile, especially when performed by first-generation migrant women in the Asian diaspora working in the retail and service industries. The archival studies are inspired by the autobiography of my aunt Kunimo, who at the age of 26 migrated from South Korea to West Germany in the 1980s and worked at a small kiosk her whole life.
The study uses Black Odonata, a fictive dragonfly character with black teeth, to kinetically archive and reimagine the yellow woman’s act of smiling as an economically and socially shaped emotional display. In this second archival study, Black Odonata engages with the public audience as a dragonfly. At various events and public spaces she sets up a small kiosk stand to sell imaginary candies, newspapers, and smiles. Through the interplay between performer and audience, performance and reception, “ficting” and “facting,” her body continues to grow into a performative archive of ‘smiling dialogues’ that reveals a happiness landscape inextricably connected to the oppressive hierarchies of white supremacist, hetero-patriarchy.
Photography: Julia Pfister-Mischkowski