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In This Moment- Yuchi Hsiao Solo Exhibition
Yuchi Hsiao: In This Moment
Soma Liang
In This Moment is a residency project by Yuchi Hsiao at Hangar.org in Barcelona, Spain. For a residency piece, she presents what, at first glance, appears to be a rather Type I (*) work: on two staggered screens, images of windows opening and closing play alongside scenes of slanted sunlight unique to a Barcelona morning and evening. When the video concludes, a light switches on, shining through a thin rainbow film, conjuring a magical boundary.
The window, historically, has served as a mirror that reflects the artist’s interiority. Grappling with this classic motif, Hsiao adopts a subversive approach. “The room is the wildest place; it’s also where seclusion takes place. That’s how one ventures beyond the door,” she says.
When asked about her life during the residency, she describes it as a whirlwind of intensive travels, social interactions, and visits to art venues. Eventually she distills the sensory experience of her immersion in the Barcelona scene into a single wall in a room, where the foreign landscape is instantly erased, the viewer left with an elusive sense of loss at interpreting what lies before their eyes.
Light Sensation of 41.38°N
Hsiao and the light of Barcelona engage in a playful interaction as she experiments with the possibility of portraying a place through a window. As autumn segues into winter, the sun in Barcelona moves through acute angles, a stark contrast to the light sensation of 23°N that the artist is familiar with, evoking a tangible sensory difference.
The imagery contrasts the relatively soft morning light with the sharp evening shadows. The air transitions from the balmy Mediterranean atmosphere to a crisp dryness, as the land of Catalonia draws out the moisture, welcoming the night with an invigorating briskness — all within the span of a single day.
More precisely, the artist adopts “window-filtered light and shadow” as her sole visual elements, investigating abstraction through abstract materials. The repetitive act of opening and closing maps the nuanced shifts between day and night. In This Moment allows the window to let the light in; at the same time, the physical presence of the window disrupts the light, eliciting a liminal space where light meets shadow, and a texture of light that belongs to 41.38°N is conceived.
Beyond the frame, the daily fixed-point shooting reflects an intimate fixation and a ritualistic endeavor that borders on the futile. As time flows, and days build upon one another outside the confines of the image, the captured scenes portray only the immediate corporeal presence in the present.
Poetry of the Flawed
Hsiao’s experimental game incorporates deliberate traces of manual intervention: the subtle rearrangements of a blue silk scarf act as a disturbance in the otherwise seamless poetry of the scene. This intervention introduces a sense of doubt, prompting the viewer to question the authenticity of the experience, and whether it is genuinely unfolding in Barcelona.
The light that turns on following the video shines through a rainbow-tinted film, which is originally designed to cover bathroom windows for privacy. It hints at inconvenience and awkwardness. The neon glow evokes a kitschy sense of nostalgia, a shared connection coursing between 42°N and 23°N.
In the artist’s hands, the boundary between reality and fiction is laid bare. This deliberate act of breaking the fourth wall suggests that the specific location of an artist residency may not matter as much as one might think. Instead, the age-old question of “What is the essence of creation,” though perhaps clichéd, reemerges with renewed relevance.
A Magical Moment in Barcelona
In This Moment illustrates the connection between geographical context and seasonal shift through light and shadow, revealing the abstract coordinates of the artist. In a time where the image has lost its pertinence, the artist opts for low-tech image processing, studying seemingly insignificant details to create a personal sanctuary, where a space-time singularity transports the viewer back to their own private space.
“To be a writer, for me, is on the contrary to condemn themselves to live on the sidelines,” Leïla Slimani writes in Le parfum des fleurs la nuit. In this Moment sees the artist place herself at the threshold between light and shadow, being at once outside and inside the window, engaged in a diffuse gaze at the light and shadow at 41.38°N, only to ultimately cancel it.
The exhibition limns how the body changes, drenched in the moment, faintest seasonal shifts magnified: everything becomes more — and less — Barcelona.
A magical moment in Barcelona, at last, manifests itself in the poetry of the flawed.
* “I” stands for introvert in the now-popular MBTI personality test.
About the Artist
Yuchi Hsiao graduated from the Graduate Institute of New Media Art at the Taipei National University of the Arts. She works in video, textile, and installation. She has participated in the 9th Nakanojo Biennale in Japan (2023), and the artist residency at Hangar.org in Barcelona, Spain (2023), additionally, she has been selected for the artist residency program “Art for Social Change” in Penghu, Taiwan (2024). Her video works have been screened in France, Bulgaria, and Macau.
Yuchi Hsiao’s artwork explores the relationship between oneself and the surrounding. Through observing the traces and marks of people’s systematic life, her creation focuses on the unusual events in daily life. Her latest works were inspired by the space where she spent most of time during the creation process-a room that reflects her intimate emotion and expression. She is interested in people’s thoughts and feelings, and behavioral reflections. She is also concerned about how to present inner behavior into the correspondent relationship between artwork and daily life and make the work moving forward through thoughtful exploration.
Advisor｜Ministry of Culture
Organizers｜Chew’s Culture Foundation, Hong-Gah Museum Sponsor
Article & Production Companionship | Soma Liang
Article Translation| Catherine Y. Hsieh
Graphic Designer｜Ho Chuang
Installation Technical Team | Mad B Ltd.
Dates｜2024.09.21-11.03
Venue｜Hong-Gah Museum
【Opening Reception】
Date｜2024.09.28（Sat.） 15:30
Venue｜Hong-Gah Museum
【Artist Talk】
Date｜2024.10.26（Sat.） 18:30-20:00
Speakers｜Zoe Yeh (Director/Curator), Soma Liang (Curator), Yuchi Hsiao (Artist)
Venue｜Hong-Gah Museum