Cotton bud, ampoule, test strips: the equipment for the corona test is now part of our everyday life.
The Chinese artist Siyuan Zhuji has gained his experience through film clips and has now released a film.
Since March, the 33-year-old artist has been filming his own tests with a thumb-sized camera in his mouth.
The clips show teeth and tongue, light falls into the picture between the lips at the front.
From there, a cotton swab approaches.
In some footage, medical personnel in full body protective gear can be seen through the teeth.
One hand puts the test sticks in the mouth and runs them around the camera section.
"This is how our life looks now," Zhuji said in an interview with the Reuters news agency.
The regular tests are a “way of life that is unique for our time”.
The idea for the videos came to him when he was thinking about the importance of the mouth in the pandemic: as a portal of entry for the virus and as an access point for the tests.
In total, Zhuji has recorded 40 of his tests so far - an open-ended project: He plans to record videos as long as regular tests are required.
Zhuji then wants to show the clips side by side in a grid on a screen as a snapshot of pandemic life in China.
He calls his work »Hesuan Jiance«, which means »Covid test«.
The novel coronavirus emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.
Later, China was nearly virus-free for almost two years.
However, the omicron variant eventually led to sustained outbreaks across the country, which authorities are tackling with tests.
In many places, a negative Covid test is still required to use public transport or to enter public places such as schools, shops, banks, parks.
isb/Reuters
