Studio, 2014 (Performance documented on 9-channel surveillance system, 4 hours)
Studio (2014) is a four-hour durational performance, excavating inherent inequalities within existing social structures, exploring the (re)construction of identity based on personal and communal experiences, and challenging the fluid boundaries of dependency and relationship formation. The interstitial relationships formed between cultures, as well as those formed in the public and private spheres. Physically connecting the performers with lycra (stretchy fabric made into body suits/costumes), Zhuang creates a temporary community (a kind of micro-society) where each performer is restricted by the material structure of the outfit, but also free to some extent within each studio space to do his or her own work. Employing tropes of the surveillance system, Zhuang hopes the viewers (of the video documentation) could encounter the performance from an anthropological perspective—trying to make sense of the world the performers were in; the kind of “human” activity, and “human” nature. "