The Hospital Room: Wang Qingsong's Unusual Theater Work

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

William Shakespeare compared the world to a theater in which all people are actors acting out a play. A classic of modern conceptual Chinese art Wang Qingsong, in turn, compares theater to hospitalwhere people go to heal or at least reduce suffering. Vaughn Kinson, apparently, is close to Aristotle's teaching about the theater, according to which, a tragedy, evoking the strongest feelings in the audience, such as compassion and fear, thereby purifies his soul, fosters humanity in him, makes him better than he was.

Vaughn Kinson notes a similar role for theater in human destiny. His amazing work, called Temporary Ward, compares this establishment to a hospital where people of different ages and social status lie in the hope of curing their ailments.

The Chinese artist deliberately exaggerates the healing power of the theater. And the people involved in the work of Temporary Ward do not have psychological problems such as bad mood, depression, mental confusion, from which a theatrical performance saves, but physical ailments that are clearly pronounced visually.

Just as in temporary hospital wards, doctors alleviate the suffering of patients and distribute them to different departments of the hospital, where they are engaged in the targeted cure of certain diseases, so in theaters, visitors can find temporary relief for the mind and psyche, so that later they can return to normal life with renewed vigor and try to use in it decisions and behaviors gleaned from good drama.

Vaughn Kinson created Temporary Ward at the Experimental Theater in the British city of Newcastle. On it you can see both the actors of this cultural institution and the spectators who often attend performances in it.

The photographs depicting the Temporary Ward are part of the exhibition at the China Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art.