Chen Qiulin: RUO SHUI
The new work, "Drown" (2021), is a series of performance works by Chen Qiulin in response to the intensification of collective emotion since COVID-19. She chose tofu, a medium she has used for nearly 20 years, as the performance prop. Through cooperation with dance artist Zheng Yuanyuan and sound artist Chen Hongli, she tried a collective creation for the first time, and even transferred the focus of her work to the co-creator.
The implication of tofu requires no further annotation. Like in all relevant works of Chen Qiulin’s before, it is a familiar ingredient in daily life. In addition, the folk saying "taking tofu" also gives it a gender (critical) meaning. However, these are not what Chen Qiulin values. It is the material properties and sensory characteristics of tofu that attract her. It is fragile, sensitive, perishable, smelly, tolerant, and can derive different variants. The artist keenly captured these characteristics and induced her to use them as artistic materials. The difference is that if the previous practice was more conceptual (such as "anti monumentality" and "anti caste order" in "The Hundred Surnames"), in this new work, the concept retreated to the second place. She paid more attention to the stickiness and toughness of tofu itself and the daily violence hidden in its surplus, just like the completely intensified emotions, will also devour us.
After Chen Qiulin set up the props based on tofu and its mold and briefly stated her ideas, the live performance was brought to be played by dancer Zheng Yuanyuan and sound artist Chen Hongli. Between them - whether between the body and tofu, or between the sound and dance - there is collision, stickiness and blending... In this humble temporary stage, the originally fragile tofu is mixed with "maladjusted" sound, as if surrounded by dangerous unpredictable water(Ruo Shui). What the performer shows here is not so much a poem of body and perception as a tragic struggle. As a result, these were not expected by Chen Qiulin, she was also submerged by the performances of the two participating artists as an audience.
