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Conference-performance 

  • 20 January 2014  18:00, Bricologie, HBK, University Braunschweig, Germany

  • 29 April - 24 May (4 sessions), Métaphores et Symboles: la connaissance incognito, 59th Salon de Montrouge, France

  •  22 september 2014 19:00 Partitions (Performances), Quatrième saison, Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, France

  • 11 Marche 2017 13:30 Theory Opera, 11th Shanghai biennale, China

  • 18 november 2017 18:30, Specters of Communism, Haus der Kunst, Germany 

San Zu Ding and Pattern: Six hypotheses on the origin of the hammer-sickle sign

Conference performance, 50 min-60 min., 2013-2016

 

A Sanzuding, or ritual pottery vessel, bearing a mysterious symbol uncannily like the hammer and sickle of modern communism, was unearthed by archaeologists in 2013. Carbon-14 dating showed it had been made around 3000 BC during the Neolithic period. By coincidence, in 2015, in Xi’an, Shaanxi, a farmer excavated a perfectly-preserved piece of pottery decorated with the three-legged frog pattern, on a site located fifty kilometres from the Banpo Heritage site. This discovery has filled the gap that previously existed in the archaeological study of painted pottery of the Yangshao period and the mystery of the ancient hammer and sickle pattern.

On the basis of archaeology, anthropology, psychoanalysis, semantics, semiotics and mythology, Professor Yao focuses her research on the origin and development of the hammer and sickle motif, concerning which she proposes six hypotheses with scientific significance.

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