Molly Haslund x Yeh Tzu-Chi
Cheng Sheng-Hua:
Please briefly introduce your works first.
Yeh Tzu-Chi:
I mostly perform in performance art festivals. For instance, in our ArTrend International Performance Art Festival, we would invite artists from all over the world to create so-called poor art together. We share similar aesthetic, usually focusing on our own body performance and its possible development. When we finish our works, they’re over and gone. In other words, we practice time-based art, and value the art of time itself.
Molly Haslund:
I’d create objects to form a certain relationship with specific situation in most of my works. It may relate to the current or the past, including being in dialogue with historical contexts. My creation focuses on exploring the relationship between our own body and others’ and what kind of interaction would come up within. It’s like arranging a small dance performance. What’s more crucial is to understand how we really get united together, and how people could really become “we” as a collective existence.
Cheng:
Molly, your work usually contains structural objects created by yourself, which could be moved or create interaction with the audience in public spaces. I wonder if you value performance or object more.
Haslund:
Object, perhaps. It might have something to do with Danish emphasis on design, and I also enjoy the process of making them. I believe they determine the way we move. For example, the chairs we sit on influence our sitting position. My interest is to change what happens around the objects, such as making multiple swings close to each other and changing the way they’re connected (Swing, 2002) in one of works from the series, Coordination Model (2002-). We normally swing alone, but in the work, it suddenly turned into a collective action and the participants have to take care of each other in order to successfully swing. We could also relate the process to the concept and the operation of democracy.
Cheng:
Could you please continue to talk about, for example, how you preset and created the work Swing beforehand?
Haslund:
For the work, Swing, the only thing I made sure of was that I’d need eight partners to accompany me to demonstrate how the swing would work best. In the video, you could see that my team knew how to swing the swings at the same time, and after the audience watched the demonstration, they could try to do the same by themselves. However, if they hadn’t watched it first, they might have directly swung them with their original conception. After sitting up, they would then realize the eight swings were actually closely suspended, and if they hadn’t cooperated with each other well, they might have hurt themselves.
Cheng:
So to speak, your works usually combine sculpture and performance, with such socially engaging. I wonder if you’d change the strategy, based on different situations, to present the same work.
Husland:
Yes. My socially-engaging work series shares a basic framework, which is open to the public. Audience could choose to participate as part of the work or to watch alongside. Whether you’re watching the objects, the performances or others participation, they could all be viewed as parts of the works. All of them constitute the whole work.
Let me elaborate with the work, Circle (2013). I enlarged the compasses we all had used in school as kids, and made them into models, which could match our body movements. I first showed the piece in the opening of my solo exhibition, which took place in a small town near Copenhagen called Roskilde. After twenty minutes or so, the outdoor square of the museum became what we now see in the picture, filled with large and small circles.
At the beginning of the performance, I’d usually take a pair of compasses to draw on the ground alone, and the other two would be placed besides in order to stimulate the audience’s interests to join together. If the compasses are installed with chalk, they’d be the same color with no distinction. Therefore, you could not identify who drew which circle from the final result. This is my main strategy. I’ve taken the compasses to the public plazas, stairs, and all kinds of corners in the city later on. People would react differently based on different situations. There’s an old nanny walking pass and participating in the performance. There were young people playing skateboarders along the circles. The work was also presented in several city art festivals. I once took the compasses, transporting from one subway station to others, inviting more audience to participate.
In addition, there’s once when the earth got wet because of the rain, and then I took out the chalks, directly using the compasses to leave traces on the ground. It’s also performed outside the National Gallery of Denmark (2015). At the time, it’s very cold and I chose to perform on the dried-out fountain in the outdoor plaza. Since it’s so cold that no one would like to participate and freeze, it seemed to become a solo performance then.
Cheng:
Could you please talk about how you view the element of body in your works?
Haslund:
I believe bodily feelings are important in artworks. What I did in Circle was to combine the body and the object. Although the compasses look like a large drawing tool, but when the audience starts using it, they’d then realize the interaction is actually more like dancing. Drawing is a linear process; we do it from point A to point B. But the interaction between the compasses and our body makes the compasses become our dancing partners. It’s like dancing a piece of tango while drawing at the same time, creating such sensibilities and the viewing possibilities.
Yeh:
I think there’s a small society within Molly's works. She’s one of the designers, combining theatre and visual arts. Her performances mostly took place in art or public spaces such as museums or galleries. My works respect individual’s differences. What’s interesting is that Denmark, unlike Taiwan, which mostly follows American democratic system, is a social democratic country. Such differences might reflect the distinction between how we view body in our works. We both respect democracy, but the way we present our works and the results are quite different.
Cheng:
After watching the recorded video of Yeh Tzu-Chi’s works, I found that she especially emphasized the present and the element of time and body. After she finished the performance, the work’s gone. There’s a different characteristic from Molly's works. I wonder how Molly would respond to it.
Haslund:
I saw there’s a connection between her works and a really big performance family, Black Market International. We could see the kind of performances a lot in Norway and some of the Scandinavian countries. It’s interesting for me to see how she’s influenced regarding the elements she’s used and her career choices. It might just be a coincidence, but perhaps, it’s shaped her works somehow, and created a route for her.
Audience: Is there any existing difference between performance art and text? In the field of performance art, we often discuss about body or interaction, including interaction between people, between people and space, between people and society. In my interpretation, I wonder whether a performance artist would give instructions to the body with certain purposes or ideas and whether he or she would stimulate the audience in order to make certain collective effects. While viewing paintings, there seem to be no correct answer. However, I feel that performance art would have a clear purpose instead, to make the audience understand or participate. Would you two agree with such argument or you believe that the audience could still freely experience the movements?
Yeh:
I used to major in literature. Text contains linear development in the flow of time. There’s sequential order, which is logical. Besides, there are too many social ethnics and norms, cultivation and education within. In comparison, performance art is more open. You could put yourself into an unknown circumstance, and since the body is your tool, there’s more danger. Compared to the highly developed texts, performance art is very new with more possibilities.
In fact, I never give instructions to the audience, inviting them to participate. Performance art could be rational, like Molly’s works. She makes the objects and the audience could participate and develop individually. For example, Swing invites the audience to sit on it and swing together. There’s a basic norm within, but still remain partially open to the public. On the other hand, performance art could be totally irrational and risky without any norms within. One of Steven Cohen’s works made the male and female performers naked and smear raw meat all over their bodies. It could be erotic, violent and serious at the same time with no certain logic within. There’s such distinction between different artists.
Haslund:
There are no purposes. In fact, performance art focuses more on the process instead of the purposes. You mentioned painting. Although we, performance artist much rely on the audience, as a very important part of the performance, just like painters, we have no idea how they would think or react. Whether they come and quietly watch the performance, viewing it as a static work such as minimalism sculpture or really participate in it or just fuck it up, I think it doesn’t matter at all. Even if they destroy the ritual, it’s still another possible option, implying the formation of the audience. They’re all possible and acceptable in performance art.
Yeh:
What impresses me more is that Molly's work would imitate the existing actions or objects in our daily life and turn them into an art event. We could see that she always puts the audience and the participants in her mind.
