Public

Overview

“公众” (“Public”) is a short video of a series of gatherings in public space, recorded in various locations around the city of Beijing during the fall of 2008. When a public gathering may be regarded as a threat to the State, what possibilities for engagement do we have in the interstices between a gathering and a crowd or mob? As we observe people waiting for the bus, exercising, hanging out and becoming spectators to the little happenings of the everyday, the distances between bodies become shorter, and the boundaries of personal space begin to blur. A closer look at the density of "the masses", however, reveals the gestures, glances and words that emerge in the spaces between and around people, and it is here that new narratives begin to unfold.