Kaichen Lin

The story, The Painted Skin, is from the Strange Tales from A Chinese Studio (Liaozhai Zhiyi), a collection of supernatural tales written by Pu Songling during the Qing Dynasty. According to the tale. there was once a man-eating monster. It would kill innocent people and strip of their skins to wear them, disguising itself as a human in order to get close to more people and satisfy its evil, greedy desires .Reflecting on the historical background in which this story was created, l cannot help but associate the monster with the colonial powers that descended upon China in the late Qing period.

Colonizers also wear painted skin, which are called as Strategic hypocrisy by scholars. Before invading into another country, colonizers usually don't begin with direct military force. Instead, they cloak their intentions in the guise of “civilizing missions”, “preaching”, “commercial trade” or “protective cooperation”, gradually weakening the nation's vigilance and paving the way for deeper control and exploitation. Religious preaching, East India Company, Britain and France trading opium to Qing dynasty China are all examples.

So in this project, I reinterpreted the traditional Chinese story The Painted Skin within the context of colonialism. I designed costumes for the colonizer—or, more broadly, for the underlying human impulses of evil and greed.