Read to Resist x Broken On a Wheel (A solo exhibition by Dan Paz) May 17, 2022
Reading is a common hobby.
Since I was raised by my grandmother who did not receive much education, her way of helping me to study was to have me recite everything. So, reading out loud became a habit to help me recite all the text books. As I become a performer, reading and reciting are like my basic instincts. When a text is being read out loud, it adds dimension and atmosphere to the silent wordscape. In a play, the voice is like magic that gives lives to characters and an imaginary friend becomes so much more closer to our heart.
However, when reading is deemed as a criminal activity, reading out loud as an action carries so much more meaning than giving meaning to the text. It is an outcry from the people. It is an act of resistance and defiance. Whatever the authority won't allow us to read, we will have to read out louder and clearer for the world to hear and remember. Through the act of reading, we shall lock these words in our mind and go beyond the prison of paper and ink. We shall become the book and the history ourselves and let the truth live.
Reading, as common as it is, is now also a way of protest.
Reading about what happened on Jun 4, 1989 outside the Embassy of China in Vienna at 0500 Jun 4, 2022 (Beijing Time)
Started on May 14, 2022, "Read to Resist" is a daily ritualistic project. Every day, Michele read from a book that is now banned in Hong Kong. From May 14 - Jun 4, she read the book "I am a Journalist - June 4th Impressions" by 60 journalists who have covered news about June 4th massacre in Beijing in 1989. From Jun 5 - Jul 21, she reads the book "The Dark Night in Yuen Long" about the terror attack by triad members in Yuen Long which was ignored by the Hong Kong Police, written by one of the victims, who is also a journalist, Lau Chun Kong. As June also marked the third anniversary of the Water Revolution in Hong Kong, she also reads from the special feature "Freedom Summer 2019" by Apple Daily, an oppositional newspaper which has been shut down by the Hong Kong government in 2021 on important dates of the revolution. This is an ongoing project for Michele to exercise her freedom of expression and symbolises her continuous search of her identity as a Hongkonger while in exile.
