Hardy Banana Tale

Single channel video projection, 7 min, live Performance, 6 min, 2023

Cooperate with Vierte Welt – Berlin/ DFF- Frankfurt

Tante Hardy Banana is the godmother of those oppressed by the patriarchal logic of society. In the myth, Princess Iron Fan resides near Fire Mountain. Although she possesses a fan made from divine banana leaves, capable of extinguishing any fire in the real world, she is unwilling to use it to help people extinguish the fire. Instead, she seems content with the world burning in flames. Does the fire causing the world’s suffering reflect her traumatic past? She seems to find a kind of happiness in tragedy and pathology, living amidst the flames.

How did society contribute to the princess’s mental illness? What can help the princess extinguish her endlessly burning anger? Thus, Tante Hardy Banana descends to this world to explore these questions. They accidentally arrive in Berlin, at a performance titled “Queer Dàn Fantasy.” The divine inquiry begins here, aiming to extinguish the ongoing fire fueled by the persistent inequality in the world. “Queer Dàn Fantasy is an attempt to expand the notion of queerness to include non-western queer experiences, expressions and histories. It is also an attempt to decolonize white queerness, which has dominated the public imagination for so long.” (Ming Poon, Queer Dàn Fantasy. Eine Performance zur Neuinterpretation chinesischer Queerness, 2023)