Gossip is a Fearful Thing

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Based on the rumor of 1930’s Shanghai-based silent film actress Ruan Lingyu, who left in her suicide note these words: “Gossip is a fearful thing, gossip is a fearful thing.” Hera Chan performed a dramatic reading of a political theater script that drew upon traditions of pageantry and street theater in Hong Kong and factory plays from Mainland China. As a possible conclusion to her recent project Miss Ruthless International, her lecture-performance also ruminated on the most powerful discursive force in contemporary art; that is gossip.