If She Were a Barber
Single-Channel Video, 11minutes 50seconds;
Four-Channel Video Installation, 12 minutes; work-in-progress
If She Were a Barber is inspired by a conversation with the artist’s mother: what if she hadn’t been a surgeon but a barber? Though the two professions seem distinct, they share medieval origins and tools—suggesting that structural violence persists despite different paths. The film stages repetitive actions that seem normal yet absurd, tied to hair and the body—health care, sewing, combing. Interviews on 1970s career choices and fragmented memories of invisible violence are contributed and recited by different female performers.
Footage from The Woman Barber (1962), a propaganda film promoting women’s labor liberation, is re-edited—from a tale of emancipation to one of suspected marital murder. The project reflects on vulnerability as both personal and historical, intimate yet shaped by national trauma.
Single-Channel Video, 11minutes 50seconds;
Four-Channel Video Installation, 12 minutes; work-in-progress
If She Were a Barber is inspired by a conversation with the artist’s mother: what if she hadn’t been a surgeon but a barber? Though the two professions seem distinct, they share medieval origins and tools—suggesting that structural violence persists despite different paths. The film stages repetitive actions that seem normal yet absurd, tied to hair and the body—health care, sewing, combing. Interviews on 1970s career choices and fragmented memories of invisible violence are contributed and recited by different female performers.
Footage from The Woman Barber (1962), a propaganda film promoting women’s labor liberation, is re-edited—from a tale of emancipation to one of suspected marital murder. The project reflects on vulnerability as both personal and historical, intimate yet shaped by national trauma.
Still; Super 8mm and Digital; 2025