Beijing Project n.31 Serge Onnen, with Xiao Budian 小不点 and Anuar 安努亚

Blue Banana 青香蕉, 2016

Shadow theatre in the paint room, improvised concert, production parts and found objects

Beijing

The paint room becomes a shadow theatre – and out of it come blue bananas instead of blue actuators.

Shadows in the paint room

Serge Onnen had only two weeks to prepare his project. In the end, with a witty, improvised intervention, he turned the paint room of Bernard Controls China into a shadow theatre, while the musicians Xiao Budian and Anuar improvised throughout the show with their instruments.

For the performance he used parts from the production line and found objects together with his handmade leather shadow puppets. At the end, instead of blue actuators, a set of blue bananas came out of the paint room – and Xiao Budian and Anuar drew workers and managers into an improvised jam session played with the factory’s tools.

Serge Onnen’s work is a clear example of how a specific production unit can be appropriated and transformed into a poetic moment.

Serge Onnen’s website