The wedding complex: Chinese queer performance art as social activism

Abstract

Through public, intentional and interventionist displays of the queer body, queer Chinese artists have used performance art for identity expression, community building and social activism. This article focuses on some of these queer performance artworks, those that engage with the theme of weddings; that is, performance artworks that draw on and critique the social conventions of wedding ceremonies. Focusing on five case studies – the lesbian artist duo Shi Tou and Ming Ming’s photography and installation about queer women’s intimacy; queer filmmakers Fan Popo and David Zheng’s 2009 film New Beijing, New Marriage, a documentary based on a same-sex wedding performance in central Beijing; queer feminist filmmaker He Xiaopei’s performance artwork and films; the Young Feminist Activist Group’s 2012 public performance Bloody Brides to protest domestic violence against women, and the queer artist duo Cheng Yumo and Huang Ziwei’s Grand Gay Wedding performance in Zurich in 2022 – this article demonstrates that the wedding format has been used by Chinese queer artists, performers and activists in creative, innovative and critical ways; it gives new meanings to traditional wedding practices and helps rethink how queerness can relate to established social institutions and conventions in a global context. This article extends existing scholarship on performance art in the 1980s and 1990s which was predominantly male-dominated, heteronormative and elitist avant-garde art practice; it also highlights the role of performance art in contemporary China’s feminist and LGBTQ+ social movements and in articulating gender and sexual politics.