Studies on Smiling II: Black Odonata, 2019, live performance

Studies on Smiling (2019–2021) investigates the racialized and gendered politics of the “polite smile” among Asian migrant women working in Western service economies. Through performance and poetry, the fictional character Black Odonata re-enacts, reclaims and re-codes the smile of the Asian migrant woman, exposing their dual function as both survival tactic and subtle resistance within extractive economies of affective work. The project examines how certain gestures become legible or desirable within public cultures, while others remain invisible or misread.

 
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Photography: Julia Pfister-Mischkowski