Presented by Capsule Shanghai | FR11

Shot during Yao Cong’s trip to Alxa, Inner Mongolia, China, the single-screen video Count features a woman wearing impeccable makeup counts non-existent banknotes against the heatwave, causing her to sweat down her pores and wrinkles that resemble the tawny stone mount of her immediate environment. Wakening and sleep overlap between the rocks and the body in the process of an endless action. Is she the busy bank teller who imagines herself reveling in a distant scenery, or one of the locals trapped in the scorching rock pile who imagine themselves to be tellers in an airconditioned place? The work reflects on displacement and the search for a sense of belonging in contemporary China.