My Dear, You Shouldn’t Believe in Fairytales takes the construction of fairytales as a metaphor for the legitimization of narratives as a point of departure, and through a selection of works including Tejal Shah’s video installation at dOCUMENTA (13), Between the Waves; Erkka Nissinen’s 2011 Illy Prize winning Rigid Regime; and Chen Zhou’s new work, My Loving Artist - Yu Honglei, seeks to investigate the ideas of narrative, the body-subject and issues surrounding the enquiries into their (de)legitimization, (in)appropriateness and un/interchangeability. “Narration is the quintessential form of customary knowledge.” Consider popular fairy tales as shards of larger narratives we live in. We always remember the third little pig and we are always satisfied with the ‘happily ever after’ ending when the Big Bad Wolf is boiled to death by the pigs who cleverly slam the lid of the pot. If interested, one can look to the Cannes Lion Award winning advertisement Three Little Pigs, which playfully twists one’s usual train of thought – yes, the pigs are trying to protect themselves, but does that justify the killing of an intruder? Unconsciously willing it, or even consciously, we tend to construct narratives that contain little or no disjunction, but seamlessly weaved scenarios. Folktales and fables are not only seemingly innocent bedside stories; they are supported by sets of pragmatic rules that constitute the society’s own making of knowledge and history – a superstructure that we do not outgrow. Instead of the disappointment that follows when we are told not to believe in fairytales growing up, My Dear, You Shouldn’t believe in Fairytales proposes to awaken a joy in an exploration of the infinite possibilities beyond our surrounding narrations of culture, history and customary knowledge. Opening Reception: Wednesday, 20. March 2013, 6.30 - 8.30pm