yichen Zhou

beijing, china

Photography and performance-based artist

 

“Sometime I take off the mask for a short moment. The air is getting warm. I can smell the spring in the air.”

 

Menu of Week 8, 2020.

 

It has been eight weeks since the whole country shut down. Things are slowly being back to normal. I go grocery shopping once a week, while wearing a mask and getting my temperature checked. Everywhere I go, I carry an entry pass to get into my neighborhood.

 

The three passes I carry are from my own neighborhood, my dad’s neighborhood and my grandma’s neighborhood. We live in three different areas of Beijing. My grandparents are both over 85 years old, so I visit them once in every two weeks to do grocery shopping for them.  

To get the entry pass, I need:

1.     Personal ID

2.     Apartment Lease Document

3.     Scan a QR code from phone service operator. It shows all the places I went in the past month. I have to prove that I didn’t leave Beijing in the past 30 days.

4.     Register my face into my neighborhood’s facial recognition system.