Wigs were vital for the rise of the Asian economy in the post-war era. In the heyday of the

1960s, it was the number four export in Hong Kong's export-oriented industrialization. Between

Mao's China - the largest source of hair supplies, and the insatiable Western market, Hong

Kong functioned as the gateway. In 1965, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed an embargo

on "Asiatic hair" to cut off foreign currency to Communist China in the hair trade. The highly

racialized category of "Asiatic hair" was later revised as "communist hair", to enable the wig

industry to develop in U.S. allies, including mainly South Korea and Japan, which led to a

significant reconfiguration of light industry in East Asia. Departing from the moment of the

communist hair ban, through stories of movement, diaspora and migration, this project

examines the role of Hong Kong as a transient space that mediates and sanitizes the

connection between different worlds. The relationship between U.S. Imperialism and East Asia

order in the Cold War era.

 

Director’s Bibliography:

WANG Bo is an artist, filmmaker and researcher based in the Netherlands. His works have

been exhibited internationally, including venues like the Guggenheim Museum and Museum of

Modern Art in New York, Garage Museum in Moscow, Rotterdam Film Festival in the

Netherlands, Visions du Réel in Switzerland, Image Forum Festival in Tokyo, DMZ Docs in

South Korea, Times Museum in Guangzhou, Para Site in Hong Kong, among many others. He

received a fellowship from the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar in 2013 and was an

artist-in-residency at ACC-Rijksakademie 2017-2018 and NTU CCA in 2016.

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Festivals / Awards:

-The New: Vision Award, Copenhagen International Documentary Festival 2023

-“Spinning East Asia Series II: A Net (Dis)entangled”, Hong Kong’s Centre for Heritage,

Arts and Textile 2022