Coming Together, 2022 - Hand-woven and hand-embroidered textile
Coming Together, 2022
Hand-woven and hand-embroidered textile made with hand-spun nettle yarn and shoulang yam dye
200x300cm
In collaboration with Bulaubulau community, Yilan, Taiwan
Coming Together, 2022 – Hand-woven and hand-embroidered textile
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Japanese colonizers imposed the “five year aboriginal policy” (五年理蕃計劃), which banned tattooing on the face and restricted traditional weaving. Therefore, the knowledge of hand-crafting the yarn and dye from local plants passed down from generation to generation has been lost. Almost two decades ago, the Bulaubulau family revived this knowledge starting with the grandmother recollecting the weaving techniques and passing it down to her daughters and grand-daughters. In the recent years M’l’s (pronounced as Merlers) who is one of her grand-daughters, took the process further and relearned how to make plant based dye locally from plants such guava leaves, turmeric, twigs and berries. During Tsai’s stays with the family, she learned some basic techniques of weaving and together they conceived ideas of creating new textile pieces that honors the female labour and social impact on the community of reviving the craft.
Charwei Tsai In collaboration with Stephen O’Malley Numbers, 2021 數字 Video with sound & color, 16min44sec Co-commissioned by Sydney Opera House & C-Lab, Taipei With support from the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan
Numbers, 2021 數字
Numbers, 2022 is a multi-channel video and sound installation that marks Tsai’s first collaboration with the musician Stephen O’Malley, who is well known for his experimental work with drone metal and his band Sunn O))). It is co-commissioned by Sydney Opera House and C-Lab, Taipei for an online streaming project “Returning”. Tsai and O’Malley invited five prominent opera singers to reflect upon numbers that are significant to them, and to perform the act of singing these numbers at a recording studio in Sydney. These figures measure the global population, the days of family separation, the ages of those who have been lost, the pandemic’s rising death toll.
From O’Malley’s studio at La Becque in Switzerland, he then composed an electroacoustic piece responding and incorporating selections of recordings, with additional synthesis arrangements performed by the musician Kali Malone. In Taiwan, Tsai collected video recordings as a response to the composition, mixing in imagery of the natural elements of water, air, earth, and fire. The hands of an indigenous hospital worker appear throughout the video, counting the numbers as they are sung. This work reflects on the numeric system’s dominant role in our human connection to the natural environment.
Numbers, 2021 數字
“Following on from these reflexions, Numbers, the recent video of the Taiwanese artist
Charwei Tsai, produced in collaboration with the musician Stephen O’Malley, perpetuates
the artist’s previous work while appearing more radical in its choices – a reaction to the
current state of society and the specific context of the genesis of the work as well as to the
possibility of further developing familiar concepts and works using new forms.” As reflected by Kevin Muhlen, Director of Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain on this work.
Numbers, 2021 數字
Credits: Electroacoustic composition by Stephen O’Malley Synthesis arrangements and performance by Kali Malone Voices by Katherine Allen, Michael Burden, Stella Hannock, Dominic Lui, and Henry Wright
Voices recorded at Dodgy Sound Studio by Bob Scott Composed, edited and mixed at La Becque, Switzerland Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Scwebung Published by Ideologic Organ (SACEM)
Cinematography by Motel Picture Company, Australia Kohroldorj Choijoovanchig, Mongolia Lane 216, East Production, Taiwan
Video edited by Hou Ssu-Chi, Lane 216, East Production, Lin Wei-Lung, Pan Yen-An, Cheng Tzu-Yin
Special thanks to Micheal Do, Dar-Kuen Wu, Shiao-Jen Chang, Kevin Muhlen, Amy Cheng and Jeph Lo
“Coming Together” is an exhibition born out of conversations between Charwei Tsai from her studio in Taipei with other artists, creatives, and collaborators from different parts of the world during this period of collective trauma that the world has faced. Through the process of working in collaboration and dissolving the role of the artist as an individual entity, gradual healing and regeneration began.
Coming Together, 2022, TKG+, Taipei, Taiwan
The central piece of this exhibition, Numbers, 2022, is a multi-channel video and sound installation that marks Tsai’s first collaboration with the musician Stephen O’Malley. It is co- commissioned by Sydney Opera House and C-Lab, Taipei for an online streaming project “Returning”. Tsai and O’Malley invited five prominent opera singers to reflect on and to perform the act of singing numbers that are important to them at a recording studio in Sydney. The numbers that they chose range from the world’s population to the number of people who have contracted the virus or who had died from it, to the days that they were apart from their families, and the ages of those who had lost their lives. From O’Malley’s studio at La Becque in Switzerland, he then composed an electroacoustic piece responding and incorporating selections of recordings, with additional synthesis arrangements performed by the musician Kali Malone. While reflecting on the composition, Tsai collected video recordings of imageries that rose to mind including elements from nature such as water, air, earth, and fire. In a four channel video work, a hand appears in the video counting the numbers that are sung. This work is a reflection on the ways by which the numeric systems plays a dominant role in the human connection to the natural environment.
During this time, Tsai also made frequent visits to her indigenous friends’ self-sustainable farm and experimental school Bulaubulau in the mountains of Yilan, Taiwan. She took special interest in the traditional Atayal process of weaving and its social and environmental implications in today’s world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Japanese colonizers imposed the “five year aboriginal policy”, which banned tattooing on the face and restricted traditional weaving. Therefore, the knowledge of hand-crafting the yarn and dye from local plants passed down from generation to generation has been lost. Almost two decades ago, the Bulaubulau family revived this knowledge starting with the grandmother recollecting the weaving techniques and passing it down to her daughters and grand-daughters. In the recent years M’l’s (pronounced as Merlers) who is one of her grand-daughters, took the process further and relearned how to make plant based dye locally from plants such guava leaves, turmeric, twigs and berries. During Tsai’s stays with the family, she learned some basic techniques of weaving and together they conceived ideas of creating new textile pieces that honors the female labour and social impact on the community of reviving the craft.
Inspired by the working environment of the women weavers in the Bulaubulau village, the new issue of Lovely Daze Issue 12, is dedicated to women artists and their communities who are mainly from the Global South. This will be the first issue where conversations between the artists are presented alongside their projects. The book launch of this new issue will take place during the opening reception of this exhibition.
Additionally, the exhibition will also feature a new installation, A Temple, A Shrine, A Mosque, A Church made with handwoven palm leaves by craftswomen of Al Ghadeer who are from United Arab of Emirates, originally commissioned by Art Dubai (It was a project that they commissioned then cancelled due to the pandemic); Offering of Mount Meru – Night, a circular black felt mat hand-stitched in Mongolia, and a series of paintings that Tsai has created working with mineral pigments such as agate and shells on linen.
Exhibition Advisor: Dr. Jau-lan Guo Exhibition Designer: Wei-lun Chen
The Womb & The Diamond – Seed Syllables, 2022 300x600cm Installation with mirrors and ashes DRAC Occitanie, Toulouse, France
The Womb & The Diamond – Seed Syllables, 2022
The Womb & The Diamond – Seed Syllables, 2022 is an installation composed of ten sanskrit characters in reference to the womb realm and the diamond realm mandalas from the esoteric Buddhist tradition Shingon in Japan. Each sanskrit character represents the seed syllable of a deity and the sound that resonates with the quality of the deity. For example, in the center of the diamond realm mandala sits the sanskrit character “VAM”. It represents Vairocana, who is the principal deity of this constellation and embodies the quality of spaciousness. The form of each character is outlined by dust resting on the surface of a mirror and is illuminated by the natural light of the space, which eventually dissolves into space. This mandala manifests the Buddhist concept of anicca or impermanence through the union of: form/emptiness, sound/emptiness, and mind/emptiness.
Charwei Tsai: Between the Atom and the Universe, Tate Modern
Charwei Tsai: Between the Atom and the Universe Screening at Tate Lates & Conversation with curator Valentine Umansky Friday 27 May 2022
Tate Modern, London, UK Photo courtesy of Taiwan Ministry of Culture, London, UK
Charwei Tsai: Between the Atom and the Universe, Tate Modern
Artist Charwei Tsai was welcomed to Tate Modern to present and discuss a selection of her videos made over the past two decades.
Emerging from the artist’s Practice of Tibetan Buddhism, the programme meditated on impermanence, ritual and nature through poetic engagements with transient objects such as ice, tofu, sea and sand. The screening opened and closed with the inscription of the ensō, a circle motif seen in Zen painting that is said to manifest the cycle of all living things.
Charwei Tsai: Between the Atom and the Universe forms part of the Tate Modern Lates programme exploring mindfulness and art-making as a transformative healing practice.
Charwei Tsai: Between the Atom and the Universe, Tate Modern
Screening Programme: Circle I, 2009 0:40 min Tofu Mantra, 2005 2:00 min Lanyu – Three Stories, 2012 12:00 min Root of Desire, 2018 7:08 min Circle II, 2011 1:07 min
Charwei Tsai: Between the Atom and the Universe, Tate Modern
Special thanks to Valentine Umansky, Carly Whitefield, Beatriz Garcia-Velasco and Taiwan Ministry of Culture, London, UK
