An Open Letter to Sina Niemeyer and FREELENS Galerie on her work ”The Many Wives of Mr. _____”
2 July 2023
It came to our attention, through Studiyo Filipino’s Open Letter, that an alarming article in the Neuen Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) titled “Ich will ein Date zum Frühstück, Mittag- und Abendessen (I want a date for breakfast lunch and dinner)” appeared online on 9 June 2023. It was written by Dario Vereb on Sina Niemeyer’s project “The Many Wives of Mr. L“ currently on view at the FREELENS Galerie in Hamburg. The Open Letter that the Filipino community in Switzerland addressed to the artist, the writer, and the NZZ editorial team articulates a deep discomfort and should be acknowledged and respected.
As an artist collective and association of Asian migrant and diaspora background, based in Vienna, Mai Ling feels compelled to write this letter as to why, not just the NZZ article, but Niemeyer’s entire project “The Many Wives of Mr. ______“ itself has brought anguish among our communities.
The intent of Neimeyer’s project may have been to bring “awareness” to neo-colonial structures of patriarchy as claimed in the exhibition text. But, the project is strongly problematic and disturbing because of the reproduction of the very same structure of violence within the project that it claims to call-out. What is especially centered in the NZZ article is the white male who engages in an exploitative system of “singles-tours”, wherein the women appear as mere props without agency to the stories of these “lonely” white men: posed on the bed, on top of them, looking longingly at them. It's the same brutal othering dynamics reinforced.
Within the artist’s capacity for world-making, what her work has done is to accentuate the violent structures these women in the photos inhabit without once calling out these structures or giving insight into the context within which these structures are able to flourish. Her and the exhibiting institution’s lack of due diligence in both research and a critical cultural understanding of power relations shows in the failure to portray a nuanced representation of these women and the context within which they are engaged, and they are flattened once more into objects of desire.
Furthermore, the NZZ article engages in Niemeyer’s investigative interest without a nod to the imbalance of power and privilege that she holds as a white European woman behind the lens. It is clear that there is nothing at personal risk, as she says in the article, the project is looked at as a thrilling and exciting adventure. We believe that there is an ethical way to enter into worlds that the artist has the privilege of “just visiting”; a privilege that she uses to comment on the subject matter as if she was a neutral body, not being asked to give away her position or stake in this endeavor, a constant problematic of white feminism that entitles themselves to speak for other women while erasing marginalized bodies and silencing these voices. Please do not subject a structurally marginalized community to badly constructed projections of white fantasy. What makes this not just another (neo)colonial ethnographic project propelled by a curiosity of the other? What do you, the artist, and the gallery, have to offer these women whom the artist has chosen as “subjects”? The artist created the framework within which these stories are told, and this is where we hold the artist and the involved institutions accountable. The only acceptable recourse is to not show this work as it is, and to address the points the community has critically raised.
Our collective has appropriated a fictional character from Gerald Poltz’s 1979 German sketch of a voiceless Asian woman “Mai Ling”, a mail-order bride, a mute doll, a sexual fantasy ordered from a brochure. We have continually fought against these racially exotified stereotypes that use Asian women as a balm for white Western male conceit, a colonial narrative that Niemeyer’s work ultimately serves.
These stereotypes of submissive, sexually-desired Asian women reproduce everyday violence and microaggression towards our community, especially in places where we are the minority. Communities of color, artists, academics, and activists have labored long and hard to foster voices, create counter-narratives, and reclaim agency that Niemeyer’s project have greatly undermined. We see this as a gesture that signals the continued exotification of the Asian body especially within contemporary visual culture.
We, as Mai Ling, are speaking out against it.
Mai Ling
*This letter has been written with collaborators and colleagues in German-speaking countries who have raised the same concerns.
︎An Open Letter to Sina Niemeyer and FREELENS Galerie on her work ”The Many Wives of Mr. _____” (EN)
︎Ein Offener Brief an Sina Niemeyer, zu ihrem Werk "The Many Wives of Mr. _____" und der FREELENS Galerie (DE)
PUBLIC STATEMENT ON “DER GOLDENE DRACHE (THE GOLDEN DRAGON)” AT MUSIKTHEATER AN DER WIEN
16 February 2023
Mai Ling was informed by Vienna’s Asian diaspora community of the opera “Der goldene Drache”, that premiered 14 February 2023 at MusikTheater an der Wien, whose plot contains racist stereotypical expressions against Asians.
The piece, written by Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös, and based on a script by German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig, tells a “tragic” story of illegal Chinese immigrants set in the kitchen of a Thai-Chinese-Vietnamese restaurant in Germany. It exploits the nuanced and complex lived experiences of migrant and diasporic people and reinforces the stereotypical representation of Asians — who are, in this case — illegal migrants working in “miserable”, “unhealthy”, and “precarious” (human trafficking) conditions without access to health care.
This piece has been shown in various theatres internationally, including Austria, Germany, and the UK, and is known for challenging musical/theatre conventions on the singular character role. Despite that, the piece continuously perpetuates racist and violent depictions of Asian immigrants and diaspora communities based on the white imagination. Additionally, Theatre an der Wien promotes this piece with an inappropriate and uncanny image of Asian takeaway noodles. Although the London premiere in 2017 1 had already brought about substantial and controversial debates around “yellowface” racism and was cancelled after a backlash over its all-white cast, the Viennese theatre chooses to only cast one singer of Asian descent and has not thoroughly addressed the aforementioned concerns.
The opera upholds the racial and cultural appropriations perpetuated by white cultural industries. The problematic and tragic stereotypes of Asians have historically lingered on stage, as seen in Madama Butterfly and Miss Saigon — to name a few. In “Der goldene Drache”, the tragic story ends with the dead body of the immigrant returning to their native land, narrating “the dark side of a globalised world, of exploitation, greed and brutality”2 in its own description. However, this does not reflect white European society’s role in producing and reproducing this exact precarity, brutality, and illegality. The narrative of the “miserable immigrant” is not an artistic playground to touch upon superficially from a Eurocentric perspective.
We ask again that white cultural institutions reconsider their program critically and reflect on their role in continuing to dehumanise, humiliate, and tokenize the bodies and lived experiences of Others.
Mai Ling
1. “Hackney Empire pulls out of Chinese takeaway opera over all-white cast,” The Guardian, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/chinese-takeaway-opera-golden-dragon-hackney-empire-all-white-cast-music-theatre-wales [accessed on 14 February 2023]
2. “A Conversation with Péter Eötvös,” Ensemble Modern Magazine, 2014/1 No. 39. https://www.ensemble-modern.com/en/media/interviews/2014-01-01/the-musical-theatre-work-der-goldene-drache-a-conversation-with-peter-eoetvoes [accessed on 14 February 2023]
︎Öffentliche Stellungnahme zu "Der goldene Drache" im MusikTheater an der Wien (DE)
*Mai Ling sent an email to the directors of MusikTheaters an der Wien on 16 February 2023, however, we haven’t received any response.
PUBLIC STATEMENT ON THE DONAU FESTIVAL
8 May 2022
We, as Mai Ling, would like to address the question of institutional care for the artists of color at Donaufestival. Last night, it was brought to our attention that the festival released a publication reader that contains a very problematic and racist text. The text is not worthy of time or energy as it is written with the very intention of provocation.
We would like the organisers of Donaufestival to be held accountable for this publication and its perpetuation of racism and violence towards the artists of color in this festival. Who is this reader for? It is obviously not addressed to us. Instead, this reader symbolises how this festival wants to be remembered and seen by the white, German-speaking audience.
We were invited to perform as an artist collective of colour based in Austria, as part of the Asian migrants and diasporic experience, but there has been no transparency for the frame under which our performance was taking place. We were not informed of the existence of this reader, nor informed of the festival's stance towards its theme “Cultural Appropriation or Counter Appropriation”. We still do not know what this means in this context. Instead, we are slapped with a fascist text masquerading as intellectual discourse. In other words, a troll.
This statement though, is not about this publication, but about the festival as a whole, which decided to give this publication a platform. It is about an institution that also perpetuated racist and sexist aggressions that we had already experienced during the production and preparation of this performance. This points to what is a structural and institutional toxicity, and what they are feeding us is much more dirty and stinky on very different levels. It reduces Mai Ling into a tool of instrumentation for a white majority.
Where is the institutional care? The festival has managed to insult us, and other artists of color who have shared their practice within this framework. So we would like to ask again– why was this text published? Who is it for? And what is it for? It undermines, and tokenises us. Is this festival really standing for diversity and counter-appropriation? Because it seems we have just been appropriated.
Mai Ling
NOT FUNNY!
6 April 2020
On the 19th of March 2020, “Gute Nacht Österreich” broadcasted a racist parody of a Chinese correspondent reporting on the Covid-19 crisis. Mai Ling reacted through an open statement addressed to the TV show with the request for an apology and deletion of the content. Unfortunately, Mai Ling did not receive a response and will continue to take action against racism. Therefore, Mai Ling invited the audience to a group reading of our statement addressed to “Gute Nacht Österreich” on the 6th of April 2020 via Zoom.
All participants covered their webcams with Mai Ling’s portrait during the online performance.
The statement was divided amongst the participants and read out in German. This online performance was recorded and simultaneously broadcasted as a radio piece on Echoraum.
︎Open Statment from Mai Ling to Gute Nacht Österreich (EN)
︎Ein Offener Brief von Mai Ling an Gute Nacht Österreich (DE)
