Self-Portrait II (earth/body)
Performance Installation
2023
Performed for 3 hours a day, April 9 and 11.
Self-Portrait II creates space for attention to what is always already present within and between our bodies and our environments.
This piece is a sort of poem-ritual in which I attempt to merge with the earth. In holding and and being held by the earth, I also attempt to also hold every body I’ve ever lived in, every body the earth has been, and every body the earth has held.
Sound is touch, and we are always already touching. The body is porous, and we’re all different kinds of feedback loops for each other.
Sound from my body and re-transplanted earth are amplified through transducers, which turn surfaces of the gallery into speakers that visitors can both hear and feel. Everyone who enters the space becomes a part of the system, receiving, transmitting, and affecting sound and vibration.
Performed for two or two hours each day, visitors are allowed to come and go as they please. Each hour, I am joined by a friend for a duet of sound and presence. Sometimes we hum, and sometimes we just breathe together.
This work is also a reflection on what it means to be trans and queer in the Asian diaspora at this moment in time. Inspired by the late artist Ana Mendieta and her earth/body works, I'm asking what it means to embrace otherness as a tactic of both survival and connection.
Performed for 3 hours a day, April 9 and 12.
