As per our research, Yuenjie has used pupa for his live art at least four times.
Pupa gives me an implication of "reborn".
In this series of live art, Yuenjie made some slight differences each time he acted and gave each live act a different title to it.
I think using the idea of pupa is very creative. And the message behind, reborn, can be mixed with many other ideas and concepts so to enrich them. It can be a way to emphasize two completely different concepts, or even two extremes. Pupa, to me is a mean of life also. It shows strong impressions of positive energy, eager of subsistence, as well as hope.
It is, therefore, I think the idea of using the concept of pupa is great.
However, may it be the video recording problem, I can see no scene about how Yuenjie was look like before covering himself with those stickers. I have no clue to find out what has been changed before and after.
On the 4th episode, Yuenjie was clearly showing his sadness, concern and blessing of the victims of 512 Earthquake. He wrote down the words, 'Release from the grief', to express his feeling explicitly. I thought he was trying to use the moment of getting out from the "pupa" to show the meaning of release. But after he was out from the "pupa", the sadness in his facial expression came still, it seemed that even though people might try hard to get away from the sadness, it could hardly be success.
Pupa, can be a sign of reborn and hope; whereas Mummy, can be a sign of death and horror. If the medium used is not properly and carefully determined, the message and the feeling of an act can entirely different.
Unfortunately, the sticker used as a Human Pupa seemed quite alike a Mummy to me. If no umbrella was broken out from the costume and no such peaceful music was produced, these pieces of artwork would mean signs of despair, pain and death to me.
Therefore, I think the umbrella and the harmonica take very important role in the success of these live arts.
There are rich research findings in this blog. There are some video clips in the blog. Therefore, we can see his whole live performance. I agree with your interpretation that pupa gives an implication of “reborn”. It is because pupa is the life stage of insects undergoing transformation. A very beautiful butterfly will be developed after the stage of pupa. However, I think the real message of pupa may not be “reborn”. Yuenjie may have different ideas about pupa. Pupa may be used to represent other concepts in his performance. It is because I did not feel any happiness after getting out from the pupa from the video. Therefore, it is important to ask him the message of pupa and thus you can really understand his performance.
回覆刪除Wah! what an interesting performance! indeed i myself personally find a thin line between his interpretation of a pupa and a mummy. thank you for your great input of itnerpretation and feelings towards this art. I think performance should never be forgotten as a medium of art. Yuenjie lives in his art, it seems that there is so much in the background for the concept of pupa. I believe every art piece has a story, and in concurance with Man Fai, it seems there is more to 'reborn' in this performance for he did indeed come out of the pupa with a solemn face. Is he a pessimistic person? the colors of clothings he chose were all dark, opague and bold what is his idea and feelings for life? why did he choose the locations he used? what did the harmonica mean apart from alerting the audience that there will be transformation, did it carry a different message, was it suppose to be the heart beat or life of a newborn? for his performance by the bench, why do you think he chose to use the metal umbrella? an umbrella that had no covering seems to me another indication of the negative perspective in 'life' (if this is indeed a 'reborn' series.)
回覆刪除Personally, I don’t know much about performance and always think performance artists are cool and a little strange. However, I can’t deny the big impact performance made on audience and the work you choose is really impressive and not very hard to be understood. Beautiful butterflies come from pupa which makes us regard pupa as symbol of reborn. I really agree that Yuenjie should show how he looks before going into the pupa, which makes the change more clear. However, I feel confused since Yuenjie choose reborn such a positive theme, why he put the idea that ‘even though people might try hard to get away from the sadness, it could hardly be a success.’ in the work about 512 earthquake? I think it is too negative and makes me feel hopeless when faced with bad things. Does the contrast have special meaning?
回覆刪除This blog mainly focuses on the artwork Human Pupa. Pupa’s meaning is familiar to us. Yuenjie use very common material to make pupa, for example he use umbrella to make wing. In fact, it’s not as beautiful as in a dance performance. But it’s the imperfect that makes it more close to life. Everyone has chance to reborn. And I can see that Yuenjie comes out through struggles. This is also the necessary part in the process of reborn. These feelings are same as Sing and Man’s. One should endure difficulties to make her soul rebuilt. And Yuenjie put his performance in community theatres thus can let more people see his work. It’s a good way to promote art.
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