What Would You Hear If You Could? #9:
“As If We Are In Between Sleeping and Waking”

In 2018, the artist lived with a community of dislocated women in Bogor, an outskirt of Jakarta, Indonesia during the hot months of Ramadan. Xu witnessed the women sleeping all day to escape their realities, because wakefulness was often more horrifying than their dreams. The fabrics collected from homes of dislocated women around the world are frozen in time, suspended in states of intimacy, loss, temporality, exile, listlessness—living in between uncertainty and fear, the women collectively chose to escape into liminal states of sleep.

Yet, no matter the women’s situation, the walls of their temporary bedrooms are always decorated with care—the site-specific video installation attempts to “re-remember” intimate fragments and memories filmed inside their bedrooms, inviting the viewer to “listen” through care, intimacy, and touch.

在2018年炎热的斋月期间，艺术家与印度尼西亚雅加达茂物郊区一群流离失所的女性居住在一起。艺术家目睹这些女性为逃避现实而睡上一整天，只因醒来的生活比睡梦更令人恐惧。此装置将从世界各地流离失所女性家中收集的织物凝结在时间中，它们悬置在失落、临时性、流离和倦怠中——在不确定性和恐惧之间，女性集体选择逃避，进入梦境。

然而，无论女性的处境如何，她们总是用心点缀自己的临时居所——该在地性影像装置试图重新拾起在她们卧室里拍摄的碎片记忆，邀请观众通过近距离关怀和触摸来“倾听”。