SIGNATURE WORK
CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION 2024

The association between the animal and the queer can be commonly seen in popular cultural productions. However, in many cases, this link is drawn either derogatorily to portray queerness as primordial and perverse, or somewhat more neutrally, to underscore a common oppression that needs to be surmounted. Inspired by Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of “becoming-animal,” this project aims to rethink alternative relationships between the animal and the queer and to explore the queering potential of animality. This essay focuses on stories about imaginary metamorphoses between animals and women in contemporary Chinese cultures, using examples of Tsui Hark’s 1993 film Green Snake and Dung Kai-cheung’s 1996 novella Androgyny: The Evolutionary History of a Non-existent Species. This analysis considers animal narratives as a heuristic lens to examine lesbian undercurrents that typically remain unseen, unspeakable, or unimaginable outside these metamorphoses. It also discloses the queering power of animality to transcend binary categories of gender and sexuality and to challenge established boundaries of species and genera. In this way, this essay offers a new perspective to analyze contemporary queer Chinese cultures, one that invites people to rethink boundaries, communities, and identities beyond anthropocentrism and heteronormativity.