Mel Chan
Hypnotherapy for Amnesia
Hypnotherapy for Amnesia is a film that employs the technique and language of hypnotherapy, attempting to fight state-induced amnesia on the subconscious level. Mel Chan describes subconsciousness as the battleground of ideologies. When authorities edit history to suit their needs, it is then our responsibility to remember the past. To remember, as well as to mourn, can be an act of resistance.
Viewers are guided to imagine themselves as various flowers throughout history: opium poppies in the 19th centuries India, rhododendrons in 1922’s Hong Kong when Prince Edward was visiting, Xinjiang cotton flowers, mass-produced plastic flowers, and mourning flowers on the street back in 2014’s Ukraine.
Mel Chan - born in a former colony (Hong Kong) of the British Empire - grew up witnessing the paradigm shift from neoliberalism to totalitarianism to ecological crisis.Chan’s artistic research traces the intricate relations between dystopian situations and the legacies of Colonialism and (Neo)Colonialism through participatory performances, hypnotherapy, storytelling, painting and video. “The End of the World” for Mel Chan is much more than a metaphor. It is a painful fact that we need to embrace a “trouble” that we need to stay with. Her practices do not only guide people to live with the crisis, they are also acknowledgement of historical causation, as well as investigation of remedies and hopes in time of precarity.