As an individual standing in a foreign land, it’s inevitable that we found ourselves positioned in a grey area within our identities and voices: once we were banned or turn-downed to tell a story in our most familiar language, now we can say it and turn up our volume in another language, yet the audience here might not fully understand.

Is it meaningless to talk about our social issues while our bodies aren’t grounded in the motherland? Or maybe not?

{Plant Your Pomegranate Seeds} is a protest workshop based on devising performance, hoping to provide a space for the young Chinese female community in the UK to archive their stories and make their voices heard. This experience will be a practice and experiment for Chinese female narratives.

Seeing ‘Pomegranate seeds’ as a metaphor for the female body, also a cross-cultural symbol which is referenced in ancient Greek mythology (Persephone was forced to swallow pomegranate seeds by Hades and thus stay in the underworld as his wife) and Chinese traditional culture (‘多子多福’, ‘the more sons, the more happiness’), Xinyi hopes to encourage the Chinese female community to criticise and reinterpret our cultural symbols.

Workshop trailer link: https://youtu.be/MjkRE5D3gOE