Manchukuo and the Northeast Asian Modern: A Performative Museum Enacted in/as Royce Ng’s Kishi the Vampire

Volume 16, Number 4, July/August 2017
by You Mi


Article Description

You Mi’s essay on Royce Ng’s lecture performance Kishi the Vampire (curated by You Mi) at the Asia Culture Center Theater in Gwangju; the Australia-born, Hong Kong-based artist skillfully transforms a Japanese propaganda kimono into a quasi display object, blurring the lines between critical ethnography and artistic production and presentation, thereby questioning the politics of representation. Royce Ng’s performance leaves us to ponder how the archival and the museological get renegotiated through the performative, and how affect could transgress historical time frames and lend itself to new syntheses.


Related Keywords

You Mi, Royce Ng, Kishi the Vampire, Asia Culture Center Theater, Gwangju, kimono, critical ethnography, artistic production, archive, politics of representation