384 flesh-like blocks are suspended in precise rows across the wall, each stamped with a red check mark. If the life of an individual within a rule-bound society could be divided into countless nodes subject to judgment as either “right” or “wrong,” the lifetime of a compliant social being who perfectly adheres to established norms and standards appears visually as in this work: every blank filled, every box checked, a life neatly aligned with the signs of qualification. Yet the process of adapting to such rules inevitably generates unseen violence: self-doubt, inner struggle, and cognitive adjustment. Thus, the densely arrayed red checks function doubly—on the one hand, as emblems of accomplishment displayed across the wall; on the other, as wounds inscribed upon the flesh. At the end of such a life of compliance, when confronted with the approving words “You have lived a perfect life,” the individual forgets the persistent anxieties, struggles, and fear endured along the way, remembering only that life was carried through in safety.
In this series, Lu focuses on how individuals in contemporary life respond to social discipline. Discipline resides in the gray area between salvation and harm, often appearing under the guise of ‘caring’, ‘salvation’, or at the very least, ‘guidance’. Internalizing over time, this protracted and concealed violence has become an integral part of the individual, intimately and inseparably.
On 384 fragments of skin, red “✓” marks are imprinted like birthmarks into the varying textures of flesh—scarred, wrinkled, blemished. Each imperfection is concealed beneath a stamp of approval, as if a single checkmark from the societal evaluation system can iron out the folds and shadows of individual existence. These mass-produced “✓” marks compose a brutal history of compliance: from birth to death, life is sliced into checkpoints, each one validating and erasing lived experience. When the ink of standardization seeps into the skin, the self-doubt, struggle, and pain sacrificed for conformity become invisible scars—omitted from the certificate of approval but archived in the body’s private record of decay. Eventually, even the individual forgets the cost—only remembering that they have “successfully made it through a whole life.” —Liu Yan
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