Despite the unpredictable weather, on the evening of the 28th, after two to three weeks of preparation, the group exhibition ‘胎息 (Tai Xi), that birth breath,’ kicked off its preview at 6:30 PM. A total of eighteen artists participated, including five international artists from Taiwan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, experimenting with various materials and types of work. Curated collaboratively by Ryan Sun and Frankie Chu, the exhibition was organised by Original Art and took place at TuiTui artspace in Grey Lynn, a narrow space with high ceilings reminiscent of 1930s architecture.
It began with live art performances at 7:30 PM. Four live art pieces were presented by artists Phil Dadson, Jae Hoon Lee & Gabriel White, Frankie Chu, and poet Grant Duncan. The attendance was substantial, making the compact space seem crowded, including many local artists, filmmakers, fashion designers, and writers. The small space was arranged in several concentric circles. After a brief moment of complete darkness, a dim spotlight focused on Grant’s seven-minute poem titled ‘from panic to this birth breath,’ a piece marked by a conflict of reason and language shifting between layers of reality and spirituality. About ten minutes later, the crowd gathered again for Phil Dadson’s performance. He swayed a transparent, hollow “glass-flute” tube approximately one meter long in various directions, producing vocal and flute harmonics later swapping flute for a drum that he hummed voice resonance into producing percussive tappings, while a glaring moonlight rose in the background and then dimmed, that titled ‘that earth breath.’ Amidst the audience’s astonishment, another performance began. Jae Hoon Lee and Gabriel White collaborated to carry a life-sized white wooden coffin from the hallway to the exhibition space. Blindfolded, they intuitively circled the coffin’s edges until Jae Hoon lay inside, closing the lid. Both recited continuously, ‘Dream…the world…I don’t exist,’ creating a strange, humorous, and somber atmosphere. The final performance, titled Umbilical Cord, by Frankie Chu, who gradually entered the space through a waxy line connecting her visuals from the walls to floor. Three randomly selected audience members plucked strings for her (these were the inserted beehive wooden resembling frames, containing three slender steel wires). She moved backward, slowly traversing the entire exhibition space, smearing ink onto a long white oriental paper spread on the ground at the same time being pulled by the strings until the ink dried.
The exhibition space was divided into two sections, approximately 60 square meters in total. The front hall, around 10 square meters, featured Rozana Lee’s narrative video projection titled ‘Summer Rain’ on a hanging papaya leaves silk piece about one meter in size, very calm emotion and but abstract personal stories be told. Moving further inside, the inner hall artworks were grouped. Ryan Sun’s installation ‘green house’ occupied the middle section beside the window, made of charred bamboo and wool yarn woven into a hollow pointed roof structure about the height of a person. The base of ‘Green house’ was covered with soil, and flower cabbage seeds were sown before the exhibition, awaiting germination. However, the soil also contained other items, such as ceramic brain shapes and tubular forms, among other odd objects. Various works are exhibited on the side walls including Phil Dadson’s visual-music notations, depicting a multitude of tiny points and stretching lines. Other works, connecting or disconnecting in parallel or vertical arrangements and spanning the entire wall of the back exhibition area. These paintings intersected with Seung Yul Oh’s new paper-based work ‘Silk’ and Camilla During’s vibrant and highly nuanced photography series. Suspended from the ceiling, Phil also showcased a breeze-activated installation piece, ‘Whispering Snakesticks’ about four meters high, incorporating eight painted, sun-bleached branches to create an aerial overlapping kinetic structure. Each branch was dyed or painted, resulting in a splendid appearance upon closer inspection. Behind this suspended artwork were two of Frankie’s pieces related to her previous performance. These were visual sculptures with black, minimal gold, and silver print-based elements hanging on the wall.The images depicted blurry plant fuzz under dim light, along with irregular edges resembling rock formations and a waxy material treatment. Closer to the ground in this exhibition area, numerous small pieces from different artists were placed. Kota Bush’s ‘Breath Bu Series’ consisted of seven wooden panel paintings stacked like blocks, perhaps conveying a coherent story within its continuity. Pascal Harris presented an extremely small photography piece, portraying a dressed red woman, seemingly lifeless, lying inside a small frame. Kirsten Dryburgh’s artwork was challenging to interpret, featuring a small spider web with written numbers on, a mirror with cat whiskers, and a protractor.
The largest artwork in the exhibition occupied the most space, about three meters in size, a group-video projection on the front square wall. Denise Batchelor’s piece ‘Vis Vitalis’ showcased black and gold water ripples, infinitely extended, captivating both visual and auditory senses with illusory flows.. Another work was by Simon Allen, a UK artist residing in Sri Lanka at the time. The audio portion of this artwork garnered significant attention, delicately filtering into the space and ear- drums. The video featured the rusty surface of an ancient barrel piano, occasionally juxtaposed with steamy afternoon scenes of Sri Lanka. The other two artworks came from Japanese artist Zon Sakei. ‘Heavy Duty’ is a video recording depicting one of the artist’s urban-journey performances, addressing the issue of nuclear pollution. The third piece is by Taiwanese artist Jun Peng Zheng, titled ‘Ritual Module 01,’ resembling a dawn performance reflecting ancient local rituals by a local seaside. Additionally, there were two more important artworks displayed on the side walls of the projection area. One was Yvonne Shaw’s psychodrama photography piece, depicting a woman put her hand on the chest of another woman wearing a blue scarf, approximately 2.5 meters by one meter in size. The other artwork, leaning against the lower right of the wall, was Roger Mortimer’s illustrated textual a text painted on a toilet cistern, ‘Cistern Madonna,’ challenging both details and thoughts throughout the exhibition. Two AI-generated outdoor toilet photos were also placed above it. The last artwork added was the white coffin Mantra by Jae Hoon Lee and Gabriel White after the performances ended. Perhaps their repeated phrases could still be heard.
