Blue Shackles
Story
“Before going into battle, ancient Celtic warriors dyed their bodies with woad; Aztecs painted the chests of sacrificial victims blue before offering their hearts on the altar. The story of indigo is (at least in part) a story of slaves, uprisings, and suffering. However, there will always be blue at the carnival.” (Maggie Nelson, “Bluets”)
In a world where free territories are shrinking, queerness and femininity often find themselves marginalized. Just a few years ago, queer writers depicted “blue” with brutal honesty; now, we pay tribute through our art. As queer women, we are often outsiders with untold stories. We invite you, as fellow outsiders, to indulge in pain, bondage, and abandonment.
Blue Shackles
Our installation, Blue Shackles, uses blue strings to symbolize a cruel, entangled world: dense, inescapable, and suffocating. The reality is even harsher—thicker, heavier, more painful. As women, we are taught from a young age to be obedient, stable, self-sacrificing, and loyal, preparing us to be wives, supporters, and comforters. Curiosity, ambition, and rebellion are seen as threats to this framework, and anything that brings us pleasure is deemed immoral.
You, same as the patriarchal world, are contradictory.
Steel frames are wrapped, threatened, and tangled by impermeable strings of desire, standing tall and majestic like markers in the desert, yet providing whips to the other groups. You perceive them as massive as a sweeping sandstorm, yet unpredictable, leaving you nowhere to hide. Desires traverse “them,” and “they” traverse your body. But in this simulated world of Black Rock City desert, in this void we have built with our own hands, you can even see its structure, traverse its texture one by one. You use your feet and skin to navigate the mirrored walls of this world like skin; it will prick and strangle you. The pain, intensified by density, becomes as thick as a blanket. You will see—it strangely transforms into a kind of wrapping, a kind of solace!
We invite you, from all directions of the wilderness, to walk into the blue net. Like children setting sail from the sea of inner desire, you will enter a fog full of reefs and barriers. Those who leave pass through the fogs of extinction and revelry, seeing weeds reborn, the ground and seabed inverted, and murky oppression descending like a storm. Your skin and soul will merge with the impermeable jungle, shining painfully in the dark. You will see glowing orbs, grains of light from lighthouses in the fog, elusive yet reflecting the dense forest and fury of the universe. These orbs, representing ourselves, are forever rolling and escaping, never to be trapped.
We invite you to bravely enjoy the game with us. In this eternal blue forest, one day, we will forget the dense terror, and fully immerse ourselves in this crazy contradiction, adventuring with our own small orbs of light. It is light, it is flame, the indestructible world that will ultimately become our eternal paradise.
Curious to learn more about the story behind Blue Shackles? Check out the links below: