Anomaly Tales, a performance at Orchid Alley Community Garden, part of the Seven Gardens event series, Anonymous Gallery, October, 2022.

This performance is partly influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, uses ritual headdresses and sound to play with the components of the self in contemporary bodies. Video documentation coming soon..

巳 (Si), an action at Fort Tilden beach, NY, 2022. (Props: dried long-nosed pit viper, magnifying glass, rubbing alcohol.)

For this happening, I ignite the dried long-nosed pit viper 百花蛇 with a magnifying glass through concentrating the sunlight. Then I added rubbing alcohol to keep the flame alive.

For full video documentation please go to: https://vimeo.com/745603832

During my travel in China, I recorded people dancing in circles, I am interested in their ways of communal support, joy and resilience. The circular shape also often appears in my paintings as an evolving form of development. I am interested in this form because it suggests movement and growth, at the same it shares the same shape as the cosmic planets, which is where mythical and scientific ideas are explored.

For video collections, please go to: https://vimeo.com/user40804905

I have been also recording sound during my travel in China and thinking about how sound can bring and shape the memory of places. These recorded sounds are spiritual and ritualistic to me, which I find a sense of home and peace. Some recordings are Buddhist chant, and some are quotidian murmurs. I am interested in the power of sound and singing as a form of ritual that people engage with in their everyday life. Listening to the animals, I also collected cicada’s chirping as it brings memories of my childhood summertime in the rural parts of China. Further, their sound also resonates with the electronic music/experimental ambient I listen to when I make paintings, which also provides a mental space for self-care and imagination.

For sound recordings, please go to: https://soundcloud.com/down_below/tracks

Xingzi Gu

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