Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263)
By Emily Dickinson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –

Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind –

This project takes Qiqi’s childhood home – the locus of memories – as its primary site to investigate the profound implications of China’s one-child policy on the one-child cohort as well as their families who are usually considered marginal to the discourse.

As Lightning to the Children Eased is presented as a pairing of a collaboratively-produced essay film and artist’s book. Drawing on snippets of family archival films and latter-day footage, the film narrates a longitudinal story of Kiki’s life as a transnational single child, reflecting on the broader story of this radical transformation experienced by Chinese society. The book illuminates the nature of privilege, expectation, anxiety, the intricate intergenerational relationships, and the configuration of one-child subjectivity, that is also concealed and/or revealed in the film. It takes the form of a reimagined 2000’s Disney English textbook, consisting of a complementary set of the student’s textbook and the teacher’s guide. The accessibility and innocence of the former, with illustrations and thought-provoking exercises that introduce the readers to five spaces of the family house, is complemented with reflexive explications in reference to broader literature in the latter.

This work is part of the larger drive in feminist discourse and practice around space to disclose the true and lived accounts of life, encouraging those in the audience with similar experiences to engage with the discourse.

Fanqi (Kiki) Zhou is an urban geographer and event planner, currently working and living in China. She holds a Bachelors in Geography from University College London and completed MA Situated Practice at the Bartlett School of Architecture in 2021. While attending the Bartlett, she was introduced to site-writing through the Critical Spatial Practice: Site-Writing module taught by Jane Rendell, David Roberts and Polly Gould. With her interest in the social-spatial nature of interior spheres, Kiki’s practice narrates the intricate relationship between social transformations and spatial configurations through an intimate, personal lens.

The project aims to make an original contribution to the discussions of China’s one child policy. It borrows from auto-theory, as discussed by Lauren Fournier, to explore the politics of positionality and performativity through one’s lived experience. Due to its intimate and sensitive nature, the creative part of this work was developed in parallel with ethically-aware methodologies guided by Jane Rendell, David Roberts and James O’Leary, and strongly encouraged by fourth wave feminist practitioners, such as Maggie Nelson, Carolyn Lazard, Chris Kraus, Johanna Hedva, amongst others.

Li Tianbing, Lost Childhood, PARALLEL (2020). Online Exhibition.

Wang Peng, Passing Through Beijing (2016). Video.

Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts (2015). Book.