Murder of a … is a series of interactive works about food and contemporary life. Every time, the creation chooses one kind of fresh seasonal food as its core material and theme, to contemplate and question our highly artificial/industrialised/commercialised daily experience. To “murder” is to utilise and consume the edible material in various ways, and the make-believe process is a joke insinuated with violence. The series attempts to cut in via such tension and anatomise our taken-for-granted experience, and usually with parody and appropriation, it adjusts to each specific site and space, integrates scene setting and audio-visual contents, and becomes live performances and activities the public can participate profoundly.



Murder of a Pomegranate is a devising creation with the experimental theatre collective _ao_ao_ing ensemble. It starts from the special forms and features of seasonal pomegranates, and discusses the sensibility and senses alienated in the violence of labour, production, consumption, and meaning-making. The audience become the new employees of the “Super Pomegranate Factory”. Dressed in all-pink uniforms, they go through brain-washing propaganda, and via the most meticulous process and in the most serious attitude, they accomplish the most meaningless tasks and face the most baffling confusion.



CREDITS

Created by _ao_ao_ing ensemble (July, Eva, XIAO Meiyue, LIN Cuixi)
Initiated by July

Venue Support: Happenings CVS, NMG
Special thanks to: Dan T Fang, CHEN Keng, Wu Lu, Yuyu Wang, SHI Rui, Alphina Wu
Photography: Harry Jiang and audience members

PERFORMANCE HISTORY

25 October 2019
@ Happenings CVS (Shanghai)

27 October 2019
@ NMG (Shanghai)