YES YES YES is a live performance rooted in the artist’s early education experience in China. Drawing on personal memories, including a childhood school incident, the performance and moving image work examine control, rebellion, and the cyclical nature of violence embedded within social systems. Moving beyond an individual narrative, the project invites viewers to reflect on their own encounters with authority and to consider the complex power structures that shape behaviour and obedience.

In the live performance, an L-shaped white office desk fitted with an emergency button forms the central stage. A crack runs through its pristine surface, hinting at unresolved tension beneath the clean, surreal aesthetic. The sculpture is activated by Jolene, Li’s recurring fictional persona: an East Asian woman in grey corporate attire. She adopts a sexually charged and uncomfortable posture before forcefully colliding her head against the desk. In her vulnerability, she clutches a disproportionately large stainless-steel ruler with sharpened edges. Its distorted scale and uneven measurements symbolise systemic injustice, leaving the audience to question whether she is a victim, instrument, or perpetrator. As the performance reaches exhaustion, Jolene presses the emergency button. A toy ambulance arrives — a darkly absurd gesture that underscores the futility of seeking rescue from within the system itself.

The moving-image version reveals the events leading up to this climax. Jolene oversees three anonymous milk bottles balanced precariously on the desk. Piercing one with the ruler until milk spills, she appears to both enforce and disrupt order, leaving her role within the system deliberately unresolved.