Renee Cha

Happy Days, titled after Samuel Beckett’s play, explores the intersection between absurd theatre and the process of searching for self. Similar to the attempts of absurd theatre to challenge and subvert conventional ideas, one of the most important aspects in worldviews for colored women is to defy the dichotomy formed by the western authorities. Describing human beings in binary oppositional terms is heavily based on a standardized form of identity that separates self and other. But we are not to be defined nor opposed; the ‘self’ can be constantly reinterpreted, challenged, and in a way, continuously created. 

Building on the idea of using absurd theatre as a metaphor for resistance, the images create a space for fragmented and nonsensical moments to see and experience alienation in alternative ways. When the script of Samuel Beckett that is only left with gestures overlaps with the images, everything becomes more incomprehensible and paradoxical.