The performance is based on a story I wrote: a wooden barrel is only as full as its shortest plank allows. I imagined the expression on that plank’s face — nervous, embarrassed, self-conscious — when it realises this.

I translated the story into English, Dutch, and Wu Chinese, and read them in sequence during the performance. It was only while reading that I recognised myself as the shortest plank: my English and Dutch are not my mother tongue, and my mother tongue is understood by no one in the room.

My face was painted in the style of a Peking opera. Throughout the performance, I kept it hidden behind my sleeve. At the end, I pressed my face against a sheet of hanging xuan paper — leaving the expression there — and ran out of the exhibition space.