Performance
Charwei Tsai
Ancient Desires
One Taste
Part of Ceremony exhibition
Presented by mor charpentier
Geographical, social, and spiritual motifs inform the practice of Taiwanese artist Charwei Tsai, which encourages viewer participation outside the confines of complacent contemplation. Preoccupied with the human/nature relationship, Tsai meditates on the complexities among cultural beliefs, spirituality, and transience.
The new participatory installation created specifically for the 10th edition of Asia Now will greet the visitors right in the entrance area: the perishable offerings, hand-inscribed with mantras inside the vessels proposed by the performers to the visitors, will serve as a gesture of gift-giving that benefits the collective well-being of all sentient beings. This project is the new iteration of Tsai’s “Ancient Desires – One Taste” created earlier this year In collaboration with the local community of Licchavi House in Kathmandu, founded by the world renown Bhutanese Buddhist teacher and filmmaker Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
The installation is accompanied by Ndewa & Hamanangu, a series of ikat textiles made in collaboration with a young weaver Nency Dwi Ratna from the island of Sumba in Indonesia through the support of curator Alia Swastika. For this ten-month project, the weaver closely followed traditional methods passed down through her mother. As a tribute to the tradition, hand-spun yarn from locally sourced cotton and plant based-dye from hand-picked native plants such as indigo, turmeric, and morinda took the form of a local totem ‘lobster’ that symbolizes re-generation. Every step of the preparation follows the natural rhythms of the land. What seems to be mundane labor manifests into sacred geometries representing the interdependence of micro and macro cosmologies. This is part of a series of project where Tsai works with craftswomen in rural regions to preserve their knowledge and skills of working with plant-based and locally sourced materials that are otherwise quickly dying out.
Desires – One Taste, 2024
A set of 1000 ceramic offering vessels made in Nepal
Dimensions variable
In collaboration with the community of Licchavi House, Kathmandu, NepalAncient
Previously commissioned by Licchavi House, Kathmandu, Nepal
Artist
Charwei Tsai
Performance type
Participatory installation
Ceramic vases and offerings placed on circular mirrors
Ikat textile woven with hand-spun cotton yarn, handmade, vegetable dyed with indigo, morinda and turmeric from Sumba
In collaboration with Alia Swastika and Nency Dwi Ratna
Curation
Radicants
Schedule
Thursday 17.10 – 10:15 am
About the artist
Charwei Tsai is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design in Industrial Design and History of Art and Architecture (2002) and the La Seine postgraduate research programme at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris (2010).