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Antwerpen (2022)
Antwerpen (2022)
In 2022, amidst the information explosion, studies reveal that individuals spend at least one-quarter of their day glued to their phones. With the emergence of social media, the internet has transformed into a platform that values community engagement more than the individual. Sadly, even professional artists find themselves devoting more time to social media marketing than their craft. Art is no longer an all-encompassing expression of the artist's emotions, but rather a commodity for commercial speculation and trending topics.
To highlight the irony of this situation, the performer spends eight hours continuously copying the texture of their body using a photocopier. After scanning and uploading the images onto fake social media, the artist has successfully mimicked the repetitive movements that trap them in this social cage. Despite reducing the time to five hours, the act of consuming art through social media has become the inevitable destiny of an artist. Each inch of skin represented in the artwork reflects the artist's passion, sharing their whole selves with the audience. Through this poignant demonstration, the artist satirizes the sorrow of a generation that values mechanized success over authentic, creative expression.
Film photographer Nikita Alexander Krestovskiy
To highlight the irony of this situation, the performer spends eight hours continuously copying the texture of their body using a photocopier. After scanning and uploading the images onto fake social media, the artist has successfully mimicked the repetitive movements that trap them in this social cage. Despite reducing the time to five hours, the act of consuming art through social media has become the inevitable destiny of an artist. Each inch of skin represented in the artwork reflects the artist's passion, sharing their whole selves with the audience. Through this poignant demonstration, the artist satirizes the sorrow of a generation that values mechanized success over authentic, creative expression.
Film photographer Nikita Alexander Krestovskiy
To be a plant in the gallery. Antwerpen
(2022)
(2022)
’To be a plant in the gallery’, Lynn especially describes the artform by putting herself in the indoor space. She creates performative situations wherein she expresses herself physicality and the manufactured objects (paper and ink) as a representation of her collective interconnectedness with the natural environment. Paintings, poetries, and performances are her conduits to deliver the message of aesthetical summation, which is the link between the plant itself and the room. When you walk toward and closely look at Lynn’s works, you can see those subtle details that all came from flaws of the human body. The pores, the wrinkles, the uneven skin, the wounds, and the fat are the texture that Lynn yearns for bringing out. She invites the audience to gaze at the blemish of our bodies, to rethink the aesthetics of natural beauty and unearth the truth of the beauty in nature through her artworks.
Film photographer Nikita Alexander Krestovskiy
Film photographer Nikita Alexander Krestovskiy
To be a plant in the botanical garden. Gent
(2021)
(2021)
jiFor Publiek Park, Xuan-Lin Wang performs in the glasshouses and the outside lawns of the botanical garden, where she enters in strong dialogue with the residing plants and flowers of this unique setting. The botanical garden was initially connected to the Citadelpark in one whole landscape before it was pervaded by the provincial road. During the four days of Publiek Park, Xuan-Lin Wang performs “To be a plant in the botanical garden” on various locations, dialoguing with specific plants and flowers in a static bodily state. The human presence of Xuan-Lin Wang and Wan-Lun Yu interact with and embodies the abundance of exotic species within the ancient glasshouses. “To be a plant in the botanical garden” results in a series of prints of the artist’s body, surfacing textures from human skin that resemble the veins of plant’s leaves and petals or the touch of tree’s bark. “To be a plant in the botanical garden” therefore diffuses the dichotomy between human and nature shapes, textures and states.
Video photographer Davide Belotti
Film photographer Myrto Grigoriou
Feature. Myrto Grigoriou website
Video photographer Davide Belotti
Film photographer Myrto Grigoriou
Feature. Myrto Grigoriou website
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Tell me yourself, I will tell you mine
(2021)
(2021)
It’s an interactive performance on the 24th of July in Stadspark in Antwerp city. The aim is to deliver the message of telling the story of myself as a plant with a human body living in this world.
How to use our body veins to communicate with other species without words. During the four hours performance, the final result includes 22 audience’s life stories which are posted on the billboard describing their name, age, height, weight, and gender.
How to use our body veins to communicate with other species without words. During the four hours performance, the final result includes 22 audience’s life stories which are posted on the billboard describing their name, age, height, weight, and gender.
Bio-temporary (2020)
Bio-temporary is a performance documentary that presents a temporary costume with orange material. This video combines two juxtaposed parts, expressing the two seasonal environments. Both videos were recorded over 15 minutes showing the performer in the beginning as naked, then placing the costume on the body and taking off the costume, and ending in the naked form once more. These two videos have similar movements but from a different perspectives. Without putting the focus on Xuanlin Wang’s body, she chooses a full shot to mute her physical body and transforms it into a natural part of the landscape.
Bio ; O (2020)
This is the documentary video that documented the Bio ; O performance. To integrate Bio-system’s procedure and concept to build an interactive performance with all the natural materials including soil, water, sun, shadow, and the human body. In this performance, the performer is a human being who will present the life cycle of the material from birth to death by using her physical body as the structure.
/ Bio-system / is a material system created by Xuanlin Wang. In this system, Bio-system, which is focused on the natural ecological system, is inspired by the human's daily waste, abandoned in our natural surroundings, and the natural elements in the context of the environment. In the material photos, the core ingredients, which include the leaf, tea leaves, flower, orange, grapefruit, fruit peel, coffee, etc., will appear on the right side of the photograph. Water is a powerful medium to connect this ecosystem to a circular sustainable circle.
/ Bio-system / is a material system created by Xuanlin Wang. In this system, Bio-system, which is focused on the natural ecological system, is inspired by the human's daily waste, abandoned in our natural surroundings, and the natural elements in the context of the environment. In the material photos, the core ingredients, which include the leaf, tea leaves, flower, orange, grapefruit, fruit peel, coffee, etc., will appear on the right side of the photograph. Water is a powerful medium to connect this ecosystem to a circular sustainable circle.
To mother | ritual (2020)
“I am willing to provide a part of my life for you to keep so that you can survive with my black blood - to Mother.”
"To Mother" is a documentary that presents a sacrificial ritual of hair as an offering to Mother as the earth. The video represents the performer who was born in a traditional family that believed that a beautiful girl was characterized by her long hair. This ritual is a ceremony for Xuanlin Wang to leave both her family's and her culture’s stereotypical perspective behind whilst also breaking the discriminatory threads of superficial representations of the female body. The name “to mother” is directly addressing her mother and family, and expressing the relationship between the human being and the Mother of the earth as human beings are a part of nature. In this performance, she treats her hair as a symbol of a sacrifice to the earth, which calls upon the elements of water, fire, and wind. A sacrifice of a part of self, that exists within previous values and ancestry notions, to step forth into Mother’s boundless nature, so that I can sustain Mother as she sustains me.
"To Mother" is a documentary that presents a sacrificial ritual of hair as an offering to Mother as the earth. The video represents the performer who was born in a traditional family that believed that a beautiful girl was characterized by her long hair. This ritual is a ceremony for Xuanlin Wang to leave both her family's and her culture’s stereotypical perspective behind whilst also breaking the discriminatory threads of superficial representations of the female body. The name “to mother” is directly addressing her mother and family, and expressing the relationship between the human being and the Mother of the earth as human beings are a part of nature. In this performance, she treats her hair as a symbol of a sacrifice to the earth, which calls upon the elements of water, fire, and wind. A sacrifice of a part of self, that exists within previous values and ancestry notions, to step forth into Mother’s boundless nature, so that I can sustain Mother as she sustains me.
