In the past, the circus would choreograph dangerous and exciting acrobatic stunts to attract an audience, with programs performed by trapeze artists. Once the performers took a desperate risk, they would inevitably make mistakes. If they missed, they would fall from a height of more than ten meters. With a screaming audience, they would land in the middle of the ring and become motionless. The theatre would then fall silent, and all the adults could do is covering their children’s eyes. This is when the theatre director would yell backstage, ‘Clowns up!’ Clowns run onto the stage, twisting and turning, gagging and laughing, just so someone would carry the injured performer off, so the show can go on as if nothing had happened. The classic jazz song Send in the Clowns echoes the inner monologue of the fallen performer, ‘Isn’t it rich, are we a pair, me here at last on the ground, and you in mid-air. Send in the clowns.’ On the tableaus, Wu Chen seems to be the clowns.

We can’t discover definitive answers through Wu Chen’s images. It’s similar to sharing something with our friends; some information gets lost while others emerge in the course of exchange, in the end, the matter becomes less important. This decision also reflects our truthful condition of constantly wavering between humility and conceit, doubt and avoidance in our everyday life.