Escape Route
Artists
Yu LIU + Sih-Chin WU (Taiwan)
Art Mediums
Video and installation
Size
24’30”
Year
2021
The work is based on the narrative of two doomsday prophecies of Taiwan and the United States. Looking back on the history of humanity, humans have constantly been rehearsing and preparing for doomsday and salvation, with efforts including new religions and Anarchism that pursue Utopian scenarios. All of these incidents show how humans are anxious to be freed from the unsolvable chaos of the world, hoping to reinstate order in a world that is getting out of hand.As the accelerator of modernization is initiated, some attempt to escape from this chaotic world, aiming to return to a primitive, spiritual, pure state of mind.
What the artists are concerned with is the creativity that the incidents inspired and what they reveal about the human need for “salvation.” By reconstructing the two doomsday incidents, the artists enter the absolute realm within personal faith, the ineffable but most authentic, pure, and undifferentiated spiritual domain.
Commission by National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, “ Phantasmapolis 2021 Asian Art Biennial” Supported by the Digital Art Center, Taipei and the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture
Artist
Yu LIU
Starting from 2014, She gradually developed a series of field studies of documentary nature as a kind of working methodology in relation to her artistic practice. How human visions the world, how attributes of spaces change, and how things are constantly being defined in a system — these all contribute to giving an account on the progression of humanity. A series of works are later created with a research focus on less visible communities marginalized by structural societal factors. The existence of these communities often reflects the intricacies of its contemporary society, and, furthermore, offers a sample of a specific historical moment with regard to a grander context—a boundary-breaking reexamination that helps disrupt strictly defined scientific methodologies and the science institution with which we are all too familiar.
Artist
Sih-Chin WU
Sih-Chin Wu was born in Tainan/Taiwan, He mostly used sculpture as medium, and sampled from his personal experience. Referring to the method of modeling, Wu made sculpture that emphasizes process and narrative, recent works which took a turn to focus on the situation of humans, animals, and nature.