The Trial is a delicately schemed form of absurdist theatre in which the main character performed by the artist assumes a severe, militant like figure in uniform who harangues three vending machines in a ‘dialectical discussion’. It explores the exaggerated gestures of the revolutionary speaker and the archaic language typically employed in communist ideological discourse. The relationship between figure and the vending machine stands as a metaphorical dialogue between capitalism and communism. The protagonist’s objectives are earnest and practical; yet somehow appear out of sync in contrast to an arbitrary setting situated in the present. In fact, the character bears stronger resemblance to the literary figure Don Quixote and his nonsensical struggle with the windmill. Unlike the windmill that remains mute throughout the tirade undertaken by Don Quixote, in this performance, these vending machines are perfectly endowed to articulate their own defense – turning the situation back onto the revolutionary agitator whose position also comes under scrutiny.

《審判》可以被看成是一齣短小的荒誕劇。 藝術家扮演的審判者，誇張地運用了的革命時代的修辭和身體姿勢，跟三個自動販賣機展開了一場的理性又滑稽的超現實的辯論。 審判者與自動販賣機的關係無疑是共產主義意識形態和現下全球資本消費主義的某種矛盾關係的隱喻。 審判者就像大戰風車的唐吉訶德，然而，風車不會與唐吉訶德爭辯，自動販賣機卻巧舌如簧。 審判者同時也位於被審判的位置。

Yao Qingmei (born in 1982 in Zhejiang) currently lives and works in Paris. Her practice focuses primarily on performance, video and related installation, incorporating elements of scenography, costumes, texts, lectures, games, sound poetry, and contemporary choreography. By intervening in specific spaces, she disrupts established rules, explores the symbols of everyday life, and examines how bodies nurtured by these symbols gain or lose power, breaking the boundaries between performance and its setting.

Her works often use displacement, metaphor, and allegory to question the mechanisms of political and social issues, revealing a tension of confrontation rooted in serious critique yet tinged with burlesque and lightness. She seeks to stimulate collisions between different modes of language, body movements, and perspectives by exploring the loosening of the body and the unique spontaneity of the individual, thus touching the interstices of established frameworks and seeking forms of resistance.

Yao Qingmei entered École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Limoges In 2007, and graduated in 2013 from École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Villa Arson Nice with DNSEP (Master) degree in Fine Arts. In 2014, she won the Jury Special Award at the 59th Salon de Montrouge and received the AIC Individual Creation Fund from the Limousin region in France. In 2017, she won the inaugural Porsche “Young Chinese Artist of the Year” award in Shanghai. In 2018, she was selected and awarded the 68th “Jeune Création” Prize in Paris. In 2022, she received the Asian Cultural Council New York Fellowship and the AIC Individual Creation Fund from the Île-de-France region.

Yao Qingmei has held solo exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo in Paris and the West Bund Museum in Shanghai, and has exhibited and performed at institutions such as Centre Pompidou in Paris, Whitechapel Gallery in London, Haus der Kunst in Munich, Shanghai Biennale, Biennial of Jeune Création européenne, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, Musée d’art contemporain de la Haute-Vienne, and Para Site in Hong Kong. Her works are part of public and private collections, including Centre Pompidou Collection, Fonds Municipal d’Art Contemporain de la Ville de Paris, Direction des Affaires Culturelles de la Ville de Marseille, Guangdong Museum of Art, Taikang Space in Beijing, Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco, and other institutions.