Folding——Yi Lian Solo Exhibition

Role and Clone  

A transparent sphere, on the lake.

Chilean artist Javier, who bears a resemblance to Jesus, was invited to present the “Galaxy Stand-up Show” in a transparent sphere floating on the lake. Javier improvised his speech based on the given keywords (“travel”, “Moon”, “planet”, “water”, “drift”, etc.). With his words continuing popping out, the air in the sphere was slowly transformed into carbon dioxide and mist, which also twined the speaker little by little.

Snow mountain, Hokkaido. Umi, the manager of the resident institution S-AIR, was invited to talk about his work experience while pushing the ever-growing snowball to the top of the mountain, which was like Sisyphus pushing the huge stone in ancient Greek Mythology. (<Myth Practice>)

The 10 recruited volunteers were invited to complete the same task under certain requirements. They would fulfill and narrate the task - “The Scenery I Saw”, based on different knowledge, life background, life experience, and approaches.

The above invitation was sent from the artist Yi Lian. These volunteers were sometimes the “roles” in the work, and sometimes were like the “clones” of the artist.

They, also the “others” in the work, are not only common others, but also others from religions and myths, others epitomizing a number of identities from one person, and “Other” (as described by Jacques Lacan) differentiated from “speaking I” and “spoken I” separated by language.

In the conversation with Yi Lian on creation, he repeatedly mentioned the importance of “communication” and “others”: “others” includes all human beings, beings and things different from the self. He longed to understand the living state, information, idea and experience of “others” except the self.

The artist acts like a weaver, taking a wisp of the thread and handing it to these different subjects — the “others”; and “others” will weave the wisp into their own warp and regenerate back. A brand-new “image” which is different from the self and the “others” is hoped to be produced through this repeated process of communication and folding.