White Barracks

"White Barracks" is the third chapter in the "Girl’s Universe" series, a broader inquiry into the fractures that develop within power structures. While the first part, "White Noise: The Reincarnation of the Pure," explores the spiritual construction of belief systems, and the second, "Girl’s Town," delves into the material construction of home, "White Barracks" shifts its focus to the internal fissures and instabilities that emerge during the reproduction of power.

In this latest body of work, I imagine a fictional island inhabited by a battalion of girl cadets engaged in constant military drills. At the center of the island stands a historic crystal monument etched with a wartime photograph. Its epitaph reads, "With the most ruthless weapons, we guarded the purest hearts," signed by "First Squad – Pure Land"—the island’s original military unit and witnesses to the collapse of the patriarchal myth. Each day, the cadets watch their comrades engulfed in distant artillery fire, longing to be equipped for the battlefield. Meanwhile, tucked away in a cave, a collection of sculptures made from leftover war materials archives the spiritual lives, beliefs, and desires once held by this battalion amidst the flames of war.

Time on the island is deliberately ambiguous. However, clues from "White Noise" suggest that ideologically, this narrative unfolds in the wake of collapsed patriarchal mythologies. The naval uniforms worn by the girls symbolize discipline and authority, carrying deep ties to the iconography of historical imperialism. Under capitalism, however, these uniforms have been commodified and sexualized, transformed into a product of youthful spectacle and patriarchal fantasy—a phenomenon particularly pronounced within the East Asian cultural context.

In "Mythologies" (1957), Roland Barthes asserts that myth transforms history into nature. This mythologizing process is central to contemporary capitalist culture, where symbols are covertly reproduced and naturalized to obscure the power structures driving them. Through the figure of the girl soldier, the evolution of these symbols is laid bare: the naval-clad cadets become ideological reproductions, packaged as natural, beautiful, and unquestionable.

Lean Lui took part in our Face-to-Face educational feedback program with Guest Reviewers and Curators Auronda Scalera & Alfredo Cramerotti. Lui is also part of »Guest Room: Auronda Scalera & Alfredo Cramerotti«.