source: echomorganart

“Their hair was shorn into all sorts of strange styles for the red guards‟ amusement; their faces were
smeared with mess of lipsticks; high-heeled shoes were strung together and looped around their bodies; broken pieces of all manner of foreign goods were dangled from their clothes at odd angles. The women were made to recount over and over again how they had come to possess foreign products. I was seven years old when I saw what these women went through, paraded through the street to be jeered at; I remember thinking that if there was a next life, I did not want to be reborn a woman.” The good women of China by Xin Ran

“I love that sense of self-love in pencilling my eyebrows and applying lipstick and blusher. For this I would be willing to be a woman again in my next life.” Shang Hai Babe by WeiHui

It‘s hard to believe that Wei Hui‘s sentence was written just 20 years after the Cultural Revolution. Two women‘s writing about the symbolic: lipsticks, one is being smeared on to women‘s face by punishment; one is being applied carefully with pleasure. And what a statement they are both making after whitessing the terrifying years of the cultural revolution. Xin ran writes: “I did not want to be reborn a woman.” and Wei Hui writes: for this I would be willing to be a woman again in my next life”.

Two women’s stories reflected a country’s past and present.

I painted my face as a Chinese flag with my red Chanel, Mac and Dior lipsticks, before going to Russia I imagined it’s going to be a platform for my journey rearching back to my roots in China, because it’s political history and a mix of cultural identity. But St Petersburg is like any modernised citie decorated with neon lights and streets after streets of consumer goods.
Once upon a time my grandmother would put Stalin’s pictures next to Mao’s poster on the wall, she could only buy rice once a month with a ticket, she never went to school so she couldn’t read or write; my mum would teach me singing “Mao is the sun– our savior”. My mum never wear any make up until she turned 50 years old. She said she could still remember vividly women being shaved and reviled by aggressive red guards during the culture revolution only because they had on a little lipstick. It is shocking to compare how times have changed in the last 40 years. I have 36 lipsticks in different shades of red…
“China is now the future” my boss said to me today (who owns a very fancy designer boutique in Knightsbridge), she said: “how can we get the Chinese girls in? They are the money now, use to be the Arabs and Russians, now China is the future!”

Little red flower
The red body symbolized my childhood belief and my confusion of losing my cultural identity in the globalized consumer culture. The final Dance image is a photographic remake of Matisse’s The Dance. I acted the dancers, behind the red tights my identity and sexuality become mysteries.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: vimeo
Narrative by Echo Morgan
Photography of performance by Jamie Baker
Little red flower: It’s a staged performance, also a short film with personal narrative. I grew up in China until 19 years old, my early communist education and China’s economic boom is deeply embodied in my roots. They still strongly control my thoughts and behaviour. In this performance I used cosmetic makeup and tights to cover my body! The red body symbolized my childhood belief and my confusion of losing my cultural identity in the globalized consumer culture. The final Dance image is a photographic remake of Matisse’s The Dance. I acted the dancers, behind the red tights my identity and sexuality become mysteries.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: vimeo
Narrative by Echo Morgan
Photography of performance by Jamie Baker
Little red flower: It’s a staged performance, also a short film with personal narrative. I grew up in China until 19 years old, my early communist education and China’s economic boom is deeply embodied in my roots. They still strongly control my thoughts and behaviour. In this performance I used cosmetic makeup and tights to cover my body! The red body symbolized my childhood belief and my confusion of losing my cultural identity in the globalized consumer culture. The final Dance image is a photographic remake of Matisse’s The Dance. I acted the dancers, behind the red tights my identity and sexuality become mysteries.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: echomorgan

Born in the communist China of the Economic Reforms, Echo Morgan (real name Xie Rong) studied at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute High School before moving to London where she gained a BA in Graphic Design at Central Saint Martins and a MA in Fine Art at Royal College of Art. Since 2011, She has been collaborating with photographer Jamie Baker on photographic interventions within her performance work. She lives and works in London.

Recent exhibition includes:

21st Centuary Art & Design, Selected Works from the RCA Degree Show,Christie’s, 2013. Drawing Sessions, Royal Stand Gallery Liverpool Biennial 2012, Untouchable, Curated by Franko B 2012, Warrior, Blackall Studio, 2012. Reincarnation London Print Studio 2012. The Enchanted Palace. A Room of the World, A World in the Room. Kensington Palace 2011. She was awarded the Crown Palace drawing Prize 2011.

The role of translation, the passage between gesture, body and voice, the shift from Chinese into English and back again, the relationship between performance and prints this is the sense contained within my work. Always movement across surfaces, entering and exiting backwards and forwards therefore I cannot settle on any one point. I am in flux, restless: a pure relationship between motion and the void.

My name is Echo Morgan, My real Chinese name is Xie Rong. I grew up in ChengDu, the pandas’ home in South-West China. I moved to the UK when I was 19. In my work I take on the role of director, performer, narrator, and filmmaker. I am collecting and collaging encounters, voices, texts, and images from my cultural roots in China and my daily life in the UK. Through the mediums of performance and film I explore the intrinsic and complex relationship between violence, beauty, and vulnerability, re-examining how these antipodal constructs impact ideas of the ‘self’ and the body. There are three paths in my work: Narrative, Live performance and performance Photographs: My narrative is rooted with my family history. I explore my individual memory that is deeply embodied with China’s complex society – one that had undergone a series of philosophical, ideological and political transformations. They show as films, little books, short stories and audio pieces. In live performance I often transform the surface of my body into symbols: Chinese national flag, blue and white porcelain, gold fish, Chinese landscape painting, rice balls and jade. I manipulate contemporary meaning into tradition iconography. I often invite viewers to participate, drawing strength from the audiences’ emotional vulnerability, and feelings of uneasiness, to complete the performance as a whole. Here, my emotions become entwined with the audiences’, creating a symbiotic relationship based on control and power. All the fragments act as a mechanical reproduction circle based on my Buddism philosophy of Samsara.