05 — Interactive installation

The Unbearable Weight of Being (Inherited Threads)

This project examines “Chinese family expectations” through an installation of three generational body-forms bound by colored threads. The threads figure intergenerational inheritance as visible burden: forms, orders, and expectations travel between bodies, accumulate, and tighten into knots. Participation follows a repeatable protocol. Viewers write parental expectations on colored sticky notes and attach them to the figures or threads; expectations that feel misassigned are removed and placed in front of the work. These actions render imposition, recognition, and detachment legible as spatial relations. Presented as a preview demonstration video, the piece draws on texts gathered from social media and close-range interviews, then selected and anonymized before being enacted under consistent rules.

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Instructions

As a child raised within a Chinese familial structure, what expectations were placed upon you by your parents? Please write the expectation on a coloured sticky note and attach it to the figurine or the coloured threads. If you notice an expectation on the installation that does not belong to you, remove it and place it in front of the device.

Visual