Betty Bright: Monica Ong’s Insurgent Universes
“Lunar Volvelle” by Monica Ong. 2021. Photo documentation by Tom Virgin.
The poet’s new exhibition looks to the heavens to reframe Chinese patriarchy.
by Betty Bright
Monica Ong’s exhibition Planetaria, on view at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, opens a universe of visual poetry to readers. The term planetaria refers to models of the solar system, and visitors should come prepared for not only celestial travel but also political dethronement, as Ong neutralizes China’s astronomical patriarchy by repopulating the heavens with a feminist gaze.
For example, Ong’s Purple Forbidden Enclosure explores the tendrils of power that link China’s distant stars to its earthly governance. The broadside’s title references one of three celestial universes in ancient Chinese star charts. In that universe, purple represents the North Star as well as the heavenly abode of the Celestial Emperor, with the surrounding stars and constellations designated as the Purple Forbidden Enclosure. As above, so below: for more than 500 years the Forbidden City in Beijing served as a home to (terrestrial) emperors and the seat of China’s political power.
That history appears as a Chinese astrological map printed in soft gray on the indigo paper. Second and third print runs in gold and silver carry glittering constellations amid Ong’s visions, such as, “FLYING SERPENTS / circle overhead,” “The muscle memory of your eyes averts the strange foliage of her / PURPLE FORBIDDEN ENCLOSURE,” and, “FEMALE PROTOCOL / Look up to her / See the self dissolve like dust into mouth open sky.”