When people don’t believe in love
They have to believe in money and physical comfort
I thought the Marriage Market needs love
So I came to Renmin Park
I brought a stool
A loudspeaker
And several books of poems
Then I stood on the stool and read poems
My name is Cao Zaifei and I’m an artist
I’m also a teacher at Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts
I went to the Marriage Market for the first time in 2019
I was really shocked by it
There were all kinds of requirements for age, salary, property, car number plate
And even the first digits of ID number
I really wished I could grow love in such a place
I read poems there on nearly every weekend and holiday
I’ve been there for almost one hundred times
Surely I have been taunted and laughed at
They said I might be crazy
“Wa te le” in Shanghainese
I saw them placing the marriage ads on the ground
I also printed some poems and put them on the floor
Which attracted more people
They picked the poems up and read them
But later the supervisor came
He wanted to take away my printed poems
Saying love poems were not allowed to be placed on the ground
Yet marriage ads were allowed
It was so ironic
After I read for around 3-4 months
The senior citizens began to accept me
And some even joined me
To read poems
So did one of my colleagues
Some retired teachers
And some students
They all joined me
And clubs and museums also invited me to read poems
In early March when the epidemic broke out in Shanghai
I was put on a complete lockdown and couldn’t step out of the building
I felt quite depressed
So I read a poem every day
As a comfort
And because I cooked at home every day
Dealing with all kinds of cooking utensils
It was at only half of the lockdown and I had run out of my frames
Then I painted on pots
And cutting boards
My neighbor felt curious
And gave me two knives
In fact vegetables were rare then
The potatoes sprouted
The man didn’t know if he should throw them away
It was a difficult decision to make
He thought so hard that he even lost his hair
That was a close-up of cutting the vegetable
So carefully
How much should I use this time
The hand is holding several eggs in the air
Which looks quite dangerous
But you also worry about your life at the same time
My paintings are simple and direct
I like such a down-to-earth style with rich Chinese experience
It’s straightforward, simple and lovely
These objects look ordinary
But with a sense of absurdity and humor
The man is looking for something under the table
It looks like if he lifts his ass
The knife and fruits will all fall down
From the table
The person is walking through a sisal hemp field
With a plastic bag of water in the hand
It’s also an indication of the dangerous moments in our life
In real life lots of people also carry a rock
Which is heavy but useless
It even blocks himself or herself
I have always been pursuing romanticism
In the current age, the society is full of noises
And everyone is dashing ahead
These things look ridiculous but reasonable
Sometimes we feel we can do nothing
But we cannot choose to ignore it
I read poems there to coexist with the environment
When we hear a different voice
We cannot change it
But we cannot fool ourselves too