Joy Li
Statement
Through The Deviation of Desire: Fire, I create a space for revealing desires. The film’s character talks to herself about her fear and selfishness, making a confession. Giving up on maintaining a good image, instead, she exposes her disgraceful thoughts, dissecting a kind of false lip servicing love. Because, as you know, if you want to hear others’ secrets, you have to share your own first. I want to create films like creating dreams because, in dreams, we discover our deep and even narcissistic feelings. And I also invite the audience to join the dream, but I’ll join first, and the rest is up to you.
Besides, as an interdisciplinary artist instead of only a filmmaker, performance art is a big part of my art practice. By making this film, I explored a new collaboration process to connect performance art and film making. I made the film with the thinking and working methods of a performance artist: using one story line to connect a series of fire-related performance pieces. This film is standing on the ambiguous space between fictional and non-fictional. It is even hard for me to tell whether The Deviation of Desire: Fire is a self-made documentary or a fictional piece based on refined self-experiences. Either way, the uncertainty creates a dream-like atmosphere and texture.
Interdisciplinary Sculpture (BFA) Students
David Correa - not exhibiting
Gabriel Jacobs - not exhibiting