The grounds of an Asian temple.

Still from What About China? (2022) courtesy of the artist

Still from What About China? (2022) courtesy of the artist

Drawing from footage recorded mostly in 1993–1994 in villages of eastern and southern China, What about China? takes the notion of harmony in China as a site of creative manifestation. Highly valued as a virtue and a guiding criterion in ethics, harmony has played an important role in the lives of Chinese people since ancient times. In the film, "harmony" involves not only the way music fundamentally defines reality, or the way space takes shape and structures daily life, but also the dynamic agents in the ongoing process of safeguarding the "roundness" of a world of social equity. The viewer is invited to fare between ancient wisdom, avant-garde experiment, and popular folk acumen as the film taps the rich realm of affect, featuring a multiplicity of voices and narratives embedded in a rhythmic conversation between the still and the moving image. (Trinh T. Minh-ha, 2022, digital, 135 minutes)

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