Dairy of Sulfur Mining - Pataauw A solo exhibition by Yu Ji

Mind Set Art Center is pleased to present “Dairy of Sulfur Mining - Pataauw”, a solo exhibition by Yu Ji from 7 to 24 January 2016. This is Yu’s second solo show with Mind Set Art Center following “In the Skin” in 2013. An artist talk will take place at 2:30 in the afternoon of 9 January (Sat.), in which the artist will be joined by Prof. Shao-Chien Tseng (Chairperson of the Graduate Institute of Art Studies, National Center University) as the guest speaker. The role of field study in contemporary art practice as well as the culture context of Pataauw will be discussed alone side this exhibition.

Yu’s artistic practice has always surrounded the labor experiences of both the mind and body. Her works not only exists as independent objects, but are also tangible articles in which the unseen consciousness and power of laboring process have been condensed into.

It was Yu’s first encounter with Liouhuang Valley at Pataauw, Taiwan in 2012 that initialized the exhibition “Dairy of Sulfur Mining - Pataauw”. The unique landscape of Liouhuang Valley inspired the artist to launch a series of studies on Pataauw’s geographical features, culture and history, starting with literature research and followed by field study. The practice results in art pieces of various forms and thus completes a journey of learning and creation experience in a very personal way. To Yu, this is a new mode of artistic practice and therefore this exhibition is not simply showing recent works but also a presentation of the project that she carried out over the past few years, in which we can find her consistency of valuing process, experiment on media, fascination for stones, as well as her first video work Pataauw Stone.

Despite much research on Pataauw in various aspects is involved in the project, Yu did not reveal the results from the research in her works directly. Rather, her personal experience throughout the journey was internalized to become abstract ideas, which were transformed into art works through the practice of gathering, sculpturing, drawing, photography, printing, performance and video. These works not only talk to the human mind, but also communicate with the nature.

The exhibition title “Dairy of Sulfur Mining - Pataauw” came from the book The Small Sea Travel Records (also called Dairy of Sulfur Mining) written by the Ching Dynasty official Yu Yong-He about his trip to Pataauw bearing the mission of finding sulfur mine. Yu Ji’s adventure in contemporary time is full of inspiration and possibilities just like that of Yu Yong-He. As Yu Ji wrote in the exhibition statement, “I love to chase what I come to be in touch with through reading and learning in reality, may it be real or illusory. Life is the only source for somatosensory experience, while it is the indefinite dust that makes the real life ethereal once in a while,” her art is full of ideas, imaginations and romantic quality, but also firmly rooted in studies, labor and personal experience in the real world.