Reality is subtitled in The big movement. Spectators sit in a small custom-made cinema and see life as a film, as it is playing out at that moment outside the cinema walls. Unsuspecting passers-by play the main roles.

A Chinese voice-over describes life as it is happening outside; subtitled in the language of the country in which the performance happens. The audience hears what is exceptional about the everyday behaviour on a square in an average Western city, through the eyes of someone whose thoughts are determined by a collective mindset. For the Chinese voice-over actor, individual behaviour stands in contrast to the grand narratives about the origins of the universe, the earth and humanity. Through the Mandarin voice-over script, always using past tense as a dramaturgic device, the audience experiences a certain distance from the outside world.

After twenty minutes, the film stops, the filmed material is slowly rewound, the hasty individual movements change into a joint choreography. Shown ‘in reverse’, the passers-by appear to be aware of each other’s presence. Among the masses walking backwards, there is one person moving forwards. It appears to be the Chinese voice-over actor, a woman withdrawing from the group. The audience finally sees themselves in the film, they become aware of their own position in the collective human history.