YúYú is a short film devoted to the rite of spring performed by Shé Zuo Bin, a Chinese beekeeper, who enters into a trance-like state with his bees. The visual capture evokes as much a “living sculpture” as a “social” one, a “performance” in the tradition of body art. Positioning a primordial alliance between humans and nature, the film questions the essential stakes of our planet: the survival of the bees as well as our ecological balance.

In Chinese tradition, man is a bridge between heaven and earth. Here, the human being becomes a living interface, highlighting the elements we are composed of as “co-habitant” of planet earth. These fields of tension between art and nature create a correlation between the two disciplines, where Marc Johnson puts himself onto an onto-phenomenological level in order to experience this connection of “being-in-itself” with other species. The link between nature and culture is no longer thought in the dominant verticality of mankind, but as a horizontal relationship where all beings are considered equal.

Text: Jeanette Zwingenberger, art historian, critic.

List of film festivals selections