Evelyn Taocheng Wang: Unintended Experience: A Job in Amsterdam

A humorous and perceptive record of the artist’s stint as an undercover transgender masseuse in Amsterdam

This volume gathers a collection of diary-like texts, posted in 2015 by Rotterdam-based Chinese artist Evelyn Taocheng Wang (born 1981) on her Facebook page, recording the aesthetic, intellectual and sentimental experiences she had as an undercover transgender masseuse in a massage parlor in Amsterdam. The vignette-like chapters retrace the daily routine at the parlor, incidents with clients and conversations with fellow workers, as well as personal reflections that deftly mix bursts of humor with moments of tension, poetical notes and an acute sense of observation. Through transcriptions of discussions between Chinese immigrant women working together, the author proposes an unconventional portrait of the Chinese diaspora. Inaccuracies of language are an integral part of the narrative. A series of watercolors by Taocheng Wang accompanies and illustrates the texts, interpreting her work anecdotes in colorful visions.