Imaginary Native
2024
Performer (Sunai Talreja ,Delvin Nosakhare, Marzio Can Ye)
Commissioned by American Academy in Rome
Peng Shuai Paolo’s new work for the American Academy in Rome, Imaginary Native unfolds as a performance that navigates the “in between” space. The work interrogates the authenticity of Marco Polo’s Il Milione - or The Book of Mar- vels of the World, written in 1298, challenging entrenched European perceptions of Eastern imaginery and dissecting the notions of “native” and “foreign”. Peng Shuai Paolo presents a series of spontaneously arranged readings by three individuals of different generations and of diverse backgrounds, who read selected excerpts of Il Milione in Italian.
Il Milione narrates of Venetian merchant and traveler Marco Polo’s as an emissary to Kublai Khan, the Emperor of China’s Yuan dynasty, who sent him on various missions to distant lands. Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities revisits Marco Polo’s journey along the Silk Road, portraying it as an imaginative exploration.
Each time Marco Polo returns from these mis- sions, he is initially unable to speak local languages. Marco Polo is described as “gesturing, jumping, crying of wonder and horror, al- most like an animal howling, or a bird calling, while objects are drawn from his saddlebags”. The Mongol emperor deciphered these signs, sha- ping his understanding of those places with his imagination. Inspired by the unusual communication between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, Peng Shuai Paolo uses his own personal experien- ce of being an Italian - based Chinese artist for this performance. Peng Shuai Paolo creates a dynamic dialogue between cultures, situating both the performers, the historical narratives and the audience in a liminal state - a space not of compromise but of constant tension and negotiation, challenging individuals’ one - sided perspective and collective understanding of “native” and “foreign”.