Work in progress

Project Description：
This project is a moving image work that examines the relationship between identity and systems of control within the context of competitive sport. The work takes place on a tennis court, where the entire surface is covered with hundreds of custom carpets printed with images of identification documents such as passports, visas, and immigration forms. A performer plays tennis on top of this surface, bringing their body into direct contact and tension with these symbols of bureaucratic identity.
The project addresses how multiple forms of identity are shaped, regulated, or made visible within athletic contexts, including:
– The shifting sense of belonging experienced through migration;
– Gendered expectations embedded in dress codes for female athletes (e.g. skirts, white uniforms);
– The challenges faced by trans athletes under binary sex classification systems;
– And the selective visibility and marginalisation of racialised bodies in mainstream competitive sport.
The work also reflects on the historical role of tennis as an imperial sport. During British colonial expansion, tennis was introduced to regions such as Hong Kong, India, and East Africa, functioning as a tool for maintaining social hierarchy and behavioural discipline among the colonial elite. While the sport’s rituals, dress codes, and rule systems project a sense of neutrality and order, they have historically upheld exclusionary structures of race, class, and gender.
This work is not aiming to ‘represent’ any single identity, but to challenge the structures that define and confine all identities—gendered, racialised, nationalised—within sport.