Teeth Gymnastics

2024
Two-channel video
Color with sound


“Teeth Gymnastics” is a symphony of intertextual films. The first part is a narrative monologue in the third person. The second part adapts popular online mouth and face yoga tutorials to the soundtrack of Chinese primary and secondary school radio gymnastics. My dental health was a source of fantasy and pain for me as a teenager from the interior of Asia. Strength of mind and body had a haunting distance for me. Training became a form of imagery, allowing a fragile and sensitive young girl to step into social normality. Unlike other daunting physical exercises, imagining the possibility of teeth simultaneously embraced the poetic, competitive, and sentimental aspects of my life experience. This visible failure of imagination allowed me to reflect the body's internal dynamics and affective experience.