‘ALL THE TIME’
as a part of ‘Savings Bank Foundation DNB's Grant Exhibition 2022’ (Sparebankstiftelsen DNBs stipendutstilling 2022)Oslo Kunstforening, Oslo, Norway
18th Nov 2022—29th Jan 2023
Installation view of ‘All the Time’
Installation view of ‘All the Time’
‘All the Time (You seem to say something)’ (right) & ‘All the Time (Chasms among things)’ (left); installation; medium-density fibreboard, plywood, woven wool fitted sheet, cotton poplin fitted sheet, plastic bag, red glass & lamp (shade), Joss paper, incense stick, candle holder, cable; 150x16x200 & 90x16x200 (cm)
‘All the Time (Dash knot)’; installation; medium-density fibreboard, plywood, lycra fitted sheet, mirror, leather shoes, clothes hanger & cover, towel, plastic bag, cable; 150x16x200 (cm)
Close-up of ‘All the Time (Dash knot)’
Close-up of ‘All the Time (The thing that was before)’
Close-up of ‘All the Time (Chasms among things)’
(Photo documentation by Julie Hrnčířová & Øystein Thorvaldsen; Image editing: Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo; Courtesy: Oslo Kunstforening)
1
You expound, thinking they honestly exist. Swapping, bartering - one dream for another. The smoke that once was held now rises; slowly but surely, blowing a kiss to the ashes that fall to the ground. You took each other in, exchanged secrets and afresh, you complete a bond.
2
Reconciliation - I never liked the word. Two sides of the same coin; it is all that you said.
In my installation works, I ponder how everyday things are transformed; from their mundane form to something other, and then, to a sensual object. Once human sensations and consciousness are laid upon objects, their properties begin to shift, they metamorphose from one thing to another. I associate the similarities in these transfigurations with those of ritualistic objects. Rinsed with faith and religious languages, their connectedness with the domestic parallels my family’s religious beliefs. This is especially true of the interior of the house and the revelation of spirits who seem to say something, but their voices are inconsistent, never speaking all the time.
In my latest work, ‘All The Time’, I compose an incomplete situation, resembling an unsolved interior of a ‘home’, which coexists in an internal logic of in-betweenness of time(s) and space(s). The installation’s title references both an answer to my perpetual inquiries into domestic entanglements, and the five physical repositories of meaning on display; three single and two double beds disguised as cabinets and altars - symbolizing the five figures of my family.
The cabinets take the form of contemporary Buddhist and Taoist altars as seen in modern homes - especially their adaptation to modular home furniture and cabinets. They play a major role in Taiwanese culture as well as my familial religious practice. They are an interface of the in-between worlds, from the living to the others, the place of prayers for peace and communication through burnt artifacts, metamorphosing smoke, and staged objects; pliable in form yet firm in ordinance. I seek to fuse religious and daily objects, accommodating my psychological projection and carrying within them a reference to affective arousal - the familial, the artificial. They are, at the same time, indiscriminate and synchronized. Where does a dream steer you (in)to?
Woodworking support:
Marthin Espeland;
Textile support:
Lucas Vallejo;
Techinal support:
Mark Walker
Support:
The Savings Bank Foundation DNB (Sparebankstiftelsen DNB); Oslo Kunstforening (OK); Norwegian Visual Artists Fund (Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond—BKV)