Year: 2023

Medium: Inkjet print, elastic string, packaging paper, recycled box, never-ending paper box
Dimensions: 11.5 x 4.5 x 3"
Edition: 4 + 2AP
 

Description:

In "The Spring Terraces," Che investigates the latent poetry within everyday objects, posing questions such as: How do we find poetry in the mundane? What responses emerge when we listen intently? Where might one follow a soundscape whose noise is as profound as silence? This collaborative work is rooted in a series of improvisational workshops that establish a co-existing platform for performers, wherein spontaneous answers and reactions arise through process. By engaging in repetitive movements and fostering participatory relationships, the performance dissolves the traditional boundaries between subjects and objects.

Drawing inspiration from the Western art world, the artist channels influences from John Cage’s chance operations, the conceptual frameworks of Victor Burgin and Richard Long, and the experimental spirit of the Fluxus movement. These inspirations converge as the artist employs improvisational methods to tell stories through both performance and photography. In one notable workshop, performers transformed ordinary kitchen utensils into creative instruments, blurring the line between the utilitarian and the artistic.

Central to the project is an innovative artist’s book—a dynamic assemblage of text, still photographs, and a perpetually evolving box that invites readers to interact with the work much as the performers did with their utensils. This unwrapping combination creates a cohesive synthesis, offering audiences an immersive exploration of self and surroundings, where life and art seamlessly intertwine.

The Spring Terraces has been exhibited at the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection in Chicago as well as the Chicago Art Department, further establishing the artist’s commitment to challenging and redefining the parameters of artistic expression.​