(Original language: Mandarin)

LIU WEI: This piece was created for the 2004 Shanghai Biennale. The meaning for us... 2000 might have been the year contemporary art was accepted, but 2004 was the year when a more comprehensive exhibition on contemporary art was held. The event was very important for us, and we wanted to participate in it. We sent in a lot of entries, after all, it was the first time we faced an exhibition of such a large scale. That is, a public contemporary art exhibition hosted by a government organisation. There was a lot of exploration—well, discussions perhaps, about which kinds of exhibits could or could not be accepted. Many entries were turned down at the time.

Our proposals had a kind of attitude. How should I put it? Well, they posed a sort of challenge towards the art museum, but the work as presented in this form was, after all, accepted. Many of these kinds of expressions were meant to counteract the previous idealism of Chinese contemporary art when everything you did had to have its roots in something even more majestic. For us, this is unnecessary. We just do not care; you can do whatever you want because we believe in freedom of artistic expression. This work is a transformation for me too because at that time everything was open in terms of the market, the government or any other aspect. Nothing seemed to be restricted, and there was less counter-reaction. Hence this work itself is also a transformation. Fewer and fewer works after this one focus on the feeling of the body. When looking back, it may be that the pressure no longer exists or perhaps many propositions are no longer valid.