Studies on Smiling I: Larva Stage, 2018
Studies on Smiling explores the politics of the smile, especially as performed by first-generation migrant women in the Asian diaspora working in the retail and service industries. The project is inspired by the live of my aunt, who migrated from South Korea to West Germany at the age of 26 in the 1980s and spent her whole life working at a small kiosk sellling newspapers and cigarettes. From 5 am to 9 pm, seven days a week, she met customers with a smile.
The study uses Black Odonata, a fictive dragonfly character with black teeth, to kinetically archive and reimagine the yellow woman’s act of smiling as an economically and socially shaped emotional display. In her larval stage, Black Odonata refuses to morph into an angry dragonfly. Instead, she incessantly performs a wide spectrum of smiles in public, interacting with the audience through this process.
Black Odonata in Los Angeles. Photography by Christian Alvarez