Speak To Me (Before I Choke)
2023

The Cantonese language is experiencing an existential crisis in its birthplace, Canton (also known as Guangdong). In Guangzhou, Guangdong, the symbolic value of Cantonese has come to outweigh its utilitarian function. It no longer exists primarily as a tool for communication, but enters into the system of symbolic consumption, circulates within systems of commodity and media representation as a marker of cultural distinction and regional identity. While its signs are consumed on the basis of identification and cultural affiliation, they cannot be reanimated into living practice. Cantonese will become a new kind of language—not extinct, but functionally incapacitated, like a specimen sealed within a display case.


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