To mother | ritual
【 material ; hair 】Antwerp, Belgium (2020)

“I am willing to provide a part of my life for you to keep so that you can survive with my black blood - to Mother.”
 
"To Mother" is a documentary that presents a sacrificial ritual of hair as an offering to Mother as the earth. The video represents the performer who was born in a traditional family that believed that a beautiful girl was characterized by her long hair. This ritual is a ceremony for Xuanlin Wang to leave both her family's and her culture’s stereotypical perspective behind whilst also breaking the discriminatory threads of superficial representations of the female body. The name “to mother” is directly addressing her mother and family, and expressing the relationship between the human being and the Mother of the earth as human beings are a part of nature. In this performance, she treats her hair as a symbol of a sacrifice to the earth, which calls upon the elements of water, fire, and wind. A sacrifice of a part of self, that exists within previous values and ancestry notions, to step forth into Mother’s boundless nature, so that I can sustain Mother as she sustains me. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Credit
Performer__ Xuanlynn Wang
Material creator__Xuanlynn Wang
Still Photographer__Benjamin Antwi
Edit__Xuanlin Wang
Special thanks__Bart Van Dijck / Jin Yanze / Angermaier Philip / Angelika Öllinger

2020.