PERFECT PEARL

Perfect Pearl is a poetic multimedia project about chasing love and the friction between dream and hard reality. ‘The picture perfect life’. https://www.tarafallaux.com/the-perfect-pearl

Perfect Pearl is a poetic multimedia project about chasing love and the friction between dream and hard reality. ‘The picture perfect life’.

The main subject is about chasing love or ‘the concept of love’ seen from a female perspective. What we desire or what we think we should desire. The story touches on existential solitude, the makeability of life and fleeting online personalities; how to emancipate and to find our own identity amidst the (lonely) crowd. Despite its cultural definitions and particularities, love is a universal desire that allowed me to identify with these Chinese women in their early twenties. My friendships resulted in a collaboration where I interweave my own poetic observations with the thoughts and feelings of my young Chinese friends. Pursuing your ‘perfect future dream’ feels like a dangerous game. Won't you always be disappointed if you keep chasing the ‘perfect picture’? How each individual shapes his life and expresses her existence is a source of lasting fascination for me.

I started the project Perfect Pearl in 2018 during an Artist in Residence period in China. I came in contact with female students through Xiamen University. We talked about their loneliness, desires and doubts about relationships. Marrying or not marrying. Because many girls I befriended spoke little English, we used WeChat 'translate'. (WeChat is a popular messaging app in China; a combination of Twitter and Facebook called ‘Moments') In the book PERFECT PEARL I have collected personal texts that I found on 'Moments' or that they sent me directly.

In the three-channel film MOBILE HOME (20 min) i collected personal mobile phone videos from 8 young women in different Chinese cities. The whole production was done through WeChat. I made suggestions to film their most common daily life routines which they interpreted in their own way. After collecting all the videos I edited them from dusk till dawn in a three channel vertical installation.

In the film ‘I write this letter in bed’ (9 min) we hear my friend Rocy reading a love letter she wrote. Should she get married or not? We see impressions of metropolitan life in Xiamen, China – panoramas of the immensity of its infrastructure (highways, traffic jams) and the hollowness of ‘this leap forward’ as celebrated in neon-lit karaoke bars. From the voice-over, we learn that Rocy dreams of being a ‘perfect woman’ but we also hear her saying: “Maybe I am not confident enough. Believing that the law is more binding than love.”

Film installation, photography and an artist book. Private links to the films can be shared upon request.

www.tarafallaux.com

© Tara Fallaux - Image from the PERFECT PEARL photography project
i

奇怪的是,我们都是回避型的。因为通常回避和焦虑会相互吸引。这就是为 什么我们可能觉得我们不够爱。因为我们都是回避型的。但我开始对他产生 依恋。现在我已经觉得有点难过了。我不在他身边的时候。所以我必须远离 他,我不能活在这种执着中。 It’s strange that we’re both avoidant. Coz’ normally avoidant and anxious attracts each other. That’s why maybe we feel like we’re not in love enough. Because we’re both avoidant. But I’m starting to develop attachment to him. Now I would feel a bit sad already. When I’m not with him. That's why I have to be away from him I can’t live in this attachment. Translated by WeChat

© Tara Fallaux - Image from the PERFECT PEARL photography project
i

大家讨厌被说成是“妇女”,因为这被男权光环赋予下,她不再是 光鲜亮丽的亚洲女性会害怕老去,或者有过生育经验,这会使她们 失去部分的所谓的自身价值。 Everyone hates being called a “woman” because she is no longer a glamorous Asian woman because of the patriarchal aura, she will be afraid of getting old, or have had childbirth experience, which will make them lose part of their so-called self-worth. Translated by WeChat

© Tara Fallaux - Image from the PERFECT PEARL photography project
i

我想在未来成为一名作家,我正在路上。我想拥有一生的自由,爱 与和平。也许更大的乳房 :-) I wanna be a writer in the future and I am on my way. And I want to own freedom in the whole life, love and peace. Maybe bigger breasts :-) Translated by WeChat

© Tara Fallaux - Image from the PERFECT PEARL photography project
i

今天晚上实在忍不住很想吃东西 我直接把衣服脱了照镜子 呜呜呜 忍住了 I couldn't resist eating tonight. I just took my clothes off and looked in the mirror. Translated by WeChat

© Tara Fallaux - Image from the PERFECT PEARL photography project
i

青春常常拿不出手,什么都是刚开始,对什么都不熟。拿不出手就 不拿了,而是紧紧地攥在手心,把勇气、坚持、梦想和想保护的一 切。喜悦的泪水之所以能顺畅地落下,是因为已有许多坚忍的泪, 为它探过路 Youth often can't take a hand. Everything is just the beginning. Yeah, I'm not familiar with anything. If you can't take it, you will not take it. But clutched in the palm of your hand. Put courage, persistence, dream and the need to protect everything. Translated by WeChat

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