Nineteen Ways of Looking brings together composer Jasmin Kent Rodgman, counter tenor Keith Pun, Chinese writer Chen Si’an and choreographer Si Rawlinson to create an Instagram Opera. Responding to the portrayal of and prejudice displayed towards people of Chinese and East Asian heritage in the West during the COVID-19 pandemic, this multidisciplinary work explores nineteen different perspectives that relate to isolation, media and mental health. These will be presented on social media as a moving image or still photography, accompanied by various combinations of music, dance and spoken word. Shot entirely on camera phone, each Instagram ‘square’ will contain a miniature chapter of this semi-linear narrative, unfolding post by post, unravelling in real time for viewers.

The 4th of six CAN digital commissions, Nineteen Ways of Looking is co-commissioned with the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA)