In a blue summer, I see:
“…A house has a door
A Cabinet has a door
A table has a door
A bag has a door
A flower has a door
A brain has a door
Eyes have a door
A mouth has a door…”
27-10-1969
Heilongjiang – China
At the centre of Yingmei Duan’s performance art is her exploration of human instincts, longings, and dark desires. She examines the processes of society and questions its conventions and behaviours.
Born in 1969 in China, Yingmei Duan is part of the Chinese avant‐garde, and worked as a painter for many years, living in the legendary art district of Beijing’s East Village. In 1995 she participated in the performance “To add one meter to an anonymous mountain”, which is considered to be one of the classics of Chinese modern art.
She became a pure performance artist under the influence of Marina Abramović, with whom she studied at the HBK Braunschweig in Germany from 2000 to 2004. There, she also worked for one year with the filmmaker and action artist Christoph Schlingensief.
In the last fifteen years Yingmei Duan has made her name in numerous national and international exhibitions, festivals, residencies and workshops through her remarkable, thought provoking and emotional performance art.
Yingmei is an inquisitive observer who asks questions of all facets of life in order to continuously learn and develop. She often impulsively and spontaneously develops performances as situational experiments. On the other hand she can also plan her performances with intense attention being paid to the last detail.
She loves to interact with the public and likes to work with artists and people from all areas of life. Her artworks are works in progress, and are often stretched over long periods of time.
