June 21st, 2019 in Shanghai, China
Jessie Yingying Gong’s solo show takes Dance Remains as a point of departure, a series of long exposure photographs Jessie made during her artist residency in Shanghai in 2018. With LED lights attached to their limbs, public square dancers and Taiji practitioners appear to be writing an abstract language as their bodies move. In combining these photographs with curvilinear Nüshu characters, Jessie established a poetic visual compilation of photography and text.
In returning to Shanghai, Jessie continues to explore the subject of public exercise, this time spotlighting Taiji. This traditional form of Chinese martial arts incorporates routine and movement, breathing and mindfulness, along with the ideological balancing of the forces of yin and yang. In this binary, movement generates yang; tranquility ultimately creates yin.
The concept of Qi – the flow of energy – is essential to Taiji practice. It is the language used to pinpoint how the internal arts feels – an imagined communication between the mind and the body. In Away with the Flow, Jessie visualizes and manifests the bodily sensations in Taiji through a variety of media, involving calligraphy, installation, visual poetry, video, and live performance.
Existence flows. Let it flow.
