Maiden’s Prayer
Closing Reception
Thursday, February 29th 6-8PM
Curated by Janine Y.C. Lai
Produced by GaMaDiam Goods
A song not often known for its name,
an identity not often known as a nationality.
Maiden’s Prayer, the title of this show, and a song synonymous with Taiwan’s dusk, aka garbage collection time, alludes to the dissemblance of peace in Taiwan.
Formosa, as she was once known, a maiden waiting for her prayer to be answered, has long anticipated a hopeful emancipation not yet arrived in all the years.
This existence can sometimes feel like a maiden tirelessly waiting for the chivalry to arrive, to rescue one out of her miserly misery, as some of the references the original idiom and name, suggests.
No matter the medium, being Taiwanese is a deeply diasporic experience / existence, an essence that unendingly permeates us all.
The collective fragility of Taiwanese diasporic identity became an organic throughline that connects the works; a precarious collective selfhood we all can intuit, yet toil with.
The state in which Taiwanese have endured throughout time informs and is found in each artist's works, this precarious nature of identity, and therefore a constant seeking, is profoundly focal and unfortunately, these days, even more an universal fact that quite a many cultures and countries face. The erasure that is consistently lived with(in), day in and day out.
To be Taiwanese, is to live as if there’s no pending war hanging over our collective head.
Yu-Jei Yen
Yu Jei Yen’s large crochet installations look at the evolution and involuntary influence of one generation onto another; one group onto another; one identity onto another.
Selena Liu
Selena Liu’s windows of peeled stickers bring to mind the innocence of childhood eroded. While the oversized kinetic mobile is a vessel that explores the somatic relationship of memories and trauma.
Vanessa Chen
Vanessa Chen’s piece based on UK-based Taiwanese artist Galen Chen’s research of the Cairo Declaration laid over the Treaty of San Francisco is a piece of Taiwan, shrouded in secrecy, not many are familiar with. A velvet curtain is employed to emphasize this open yet veiled past, that regardless of generation, not many Taiwanese have been informed of this crucial piece of history. Vanessa’s journal entries bridge the current and the distant past, bringing a deep awareness of our not dissimilar disposition of migration, language as a choice or placed upon, and the connection with that informedness embodied, applied to everyday interactions.
Christopher Lin
Christopher Lin’s work examines fragility, and the symbiotic relationship between systems, trickled from the acquiescent internal feelings of Taiwan’s precarious state in the world
Jen Chen-su Huang’s airhung triptych, woven to echo the facial tattoos of the Taiwanese aboriginal Atayal people 泰雅族, alongside the Atayal backstrap loom weaving soundtracked by the unofficial national anthem of Taiwanese garbage trucks, Maiden's Prayer, delivers the poetic experience as she weaves across two opposing worlds, in Tainan and in Chicago.
Cindy Hsu
Cindy Hsu’s sculptural figures, heroes in their own right, explore the surreal realities, whether in an elaborate sex den for Patrick Star, or a sliver of New York cityscape, the heroes offer a therapeutic escape to the artist’s past inner turmoils, and reconcile to a fearless, joyous, and laughter-filled present.
Polin Huang
Polin Huang’s paintings of an idealized glamor and freedom, aggrandised under the conservatively oppressive cultural and familial environment in which she grew up, is reflective of a rights of passage universally internalized in any diasporic existence.
Kuan Hsieh
Kuan Hsieh’s carved footprints, the back and forth repetition of stepping into one’s self and others’, collecting the burden laid by who all came before, reminds us of the the cultural responsibility one involuntarily picks up throughout life.
Maiden’s Prayer Artists
Vanessa Chen 陳詠昕
My artistic creations reflect my ambivalent self-identity. As a “nationless” Taiwanese and a foreigner striving in the United States, concepts such as blanks, silence, clarity and revelation, grace and tenderness, courage and acceptance are evident in my gradual search for self.
Being Taiwanese, one is bound to become a contradictory individual. Through conversations with myself and others, I slowly piece together what being a Taiwanese means. While I use art to proclaim Taiwan to the world, I also use it to reconcile Taiwan’s tragic history, complicated status quo, and the collective loss of a sense of belonging.
Art is my language - of silence, of joy, of mourning, and of justice.
Kuan Hsieh 謝寬
In The Ghosts That Linger, Kuan draws inspiration from Japanese wood-crafting culture, crafting four pairs of footprints and Japanese Shoji screens by hand. These sculptures not only embody the tangible results of physical labor but also serve as symbolic references to the profound influence of Japanese culture on Taiwan's evolution. Throughout the live performance, the body follows the footprints laid in front and leaves footprints behind at the same time, questioning our place in this contemporary era, particularly as members of the younger generation. The work aims to instigate discussions and welcomes individuals with similar experiences to share their narratives.
Cindy Hsu 許維真
The concept of western therapy felt burdensome to me. Instead, I preferred to examine personal anguish and internal conflicts from a birds-eye view - a removed, godlike view - through urgently and unskillfully constructed dioramas made out of cardboard and clay. These were my first clumsy steps into the world of sculpture, messy but undeniably therapeutic.
That was a long time ago. I've become much less filled with angst and more optimistic. I ditched the hatred, the ugliness, and the gore, and instead wanted to create beautiful and funny things that could potentially make others feel joy and perhaps even coax out a little laugh. Since then, I’ve enjoyed building small worlds, starting out with simple, curious “what-if”s and they turn themselves into serious, and time consuming endeavors
Jen Chen-su Huang 黃謙恕
I approach art-making as a daily practice. My works begin as sentimental stockpiles reecting what I intuitively attend to in everyday life – they become palimpsest love letters to an always shifting sense of home, to all the places I have lived and loved. These multi-sensory and often textile-based assemblages bring together an array of geographies and temporalities, honoring the memories spent in California, Chicago, Taipei, Tainan, and New York. Just as the dierent materials featured in these quilts, such as indigo-dyed cotton and linen lace, come with their complicated histories and often colonial legacies, I am interested in how a life emerges from this backdrop of chance socio-political and ecological events. These entanglements are mirrored in my collages and include references from personal and historical accounts.
Polin Huang 黃柏琳
Chosen for its distinctive sparkle, glitter conjures memories of childhood princesses. This luminous element serves as a metaphor for societal facades, urging viewers to ponder authenticity. Purposefully integrated, glitter holds profound significance in my artistic expression. Its shiny yet inexpensive quality mirrors the constructed world on my canvas - a symbolic challenge to societal facades. Polin’s paintings boldly feature vibrant colors, contrasting with her real-life persona and challenging expectations. The glittery characters stimulate contemplation on societal norms.
Christopher Lin 林敦頤
My ongoing body of work, titled Future Fossils, explores the eventuality of human absence. I have long been inspired and fascinated by fossils of extinct species in distant eras, memento moris which provoked thoughts of our own inevitable end and of the material world we will leave behind. In Future Fossils, I approach the concept of human extinction not through pessimism, but as the inevitable and unavoidable truth to our existence—one that also contains incredible beauty in its transience. Influenced by Buddhist teachings and environmental ecology, I connect fragments from both creation myths and extinction events to visualize this eventuality that is critical to understanding the whole cycle of existence from beginning to end. This ongoing project is an exploration to attain a better understanding of our place in this world both spiritually and scientifically.
Selena Liu
Selena is a non-binary Taiwanese-American artist native to New York, who works primarily in sculpture and installation.
They explore themes such as language, nostalgia, and the mundane using color, humor, and performance. With a background in industrial design from Pratt Institute, a sense of interaction is present throughout their works, blurring the boundary between the artist and the audience.
Yu-Jei Yen 閻昱潔
Yu-Jei Yen is a New York-based textile artist, most notably for creating a custom commissioned wearable artwork for musician Doja Cat, for the 2023 VMA red carpet. Yu-Jei is currently completing her graduate programat Parsons at The New School for MFA Textiles. She specializes in handmade fiber crafts, specifically crochet, and hones her obsession with laborious all-consuming, large-scale handmade knitting artform.
With a focus on Asian heritage, she navigates a constant toil with her Taiwanese identity and Asian in America. In her work, she plays with scale, and meticulously crafts intimate structures loop by loop, one stitch at a time, using crochet and textiles as her medium. Many of her large-scale sculptures incorporate textured details that evoke empathy and encourage self-reflection. Yu-Jei's work juxtaposes the refined and intricate with raw energy and emotions that push the traditional archetype of crochet as an artform.
Maiden’s Prayer Shop
Vanessa Chen 陳詠昕
Kuan Hsieh 謝寬
Cindy Hsu 許維真
Jen Chen-Su Huang 黃謙恕
Polin Huang 黃柏琳
Yu-Jei Yen | 閻昱潔
Selena Liu
Christopher Lin 林敦頤
2023
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