When the dragon dances

When the dragon dances, 18 color prints, 24×30 cm, 2012

Every year the Chinese Buddist Association organizes in the city where I live in the celebration of the Chinese New Year. For this occasion in 2012 the Association together with the gallery Dryphoto arte contemporanea, asked to some artists to develop a specific project. When the dragon dances  is the work in answer to this call. It is a series of 18 photos, arranged in 6 groups, resulting from 6 actions I made during the celebration.

The celebration of the New Year have always impressed me for the simultaneity of the actions going on. Indeed, when the dragon makes its dance, a lot of parallel actions take place (fireworks burns, tables full of food are set up, red carpets are spread out and then rolled up,  doors are opened and closed). The word synchronicity, as described by C. G. Jung, came to my mind.

So during the celebrations of the New Year, and in the same places crossed by the parade and the dancing dragon, I made some performative actions documented by photographs and a short text.

All the actions I chose are connected to the idea of  “threshold”, the first moment of perception, a moment or mutual vulnerability and exposition, when a different kind of attention is nonetheless activated. Basically Buddhism rejects the idea of a Self: the Self is not an integral, autonomous entity, being actually a No-Self . The individual self, or the ego, is thought of as a by-product of five functions or aspects that constitute the human being (form, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness), all subjected to impermanence.