易術碎碎唸，郭昭蘭Jau-lan Guo

The Womb & The Diamond is a solo exhibition by Taipei-based artist Charwei Tsai and curated by Dr. Jau-lan Guo at Vital Space and Art Corner at National Taichung Theatre in Taiwan. This exhibition presents a series of newly commissioned projects inspired by personal pilgrimages that the artist took in the past three years. Through these journeys, Tsai traces the wisdom tradition of tantra that is stemmed in fifth century India and through the medieval trade routes across western China, it reached furthest east to Japan, south to Java, and north to Mongolia.

The central piece of this exhibition is a six by three meter installation made with glass and mirrors in reference to The Womb & The Diamond Realm mandalas from Koyasan in Japan. Known for writing mantras on ephemeral materials, for this project, Tsai experiments with using breath and the sound of reciting one-syllable mantras to form each glass piece. These captured mantras are then placed on a circular mirror as a part of the larger mandala.

Along her journeys, Tsai encountered rural communities many of whom are under the threat of losing their livelihoods of working with natural materials and traditional crafts to hyper consumerism. As a way to honor gentler ways of working with the Earth, Tsai collaborates with craftswomen from Indonesia and Mongolia to create a body of woven and sewn mandalas. Ndewa & Hamanangu, is a series of ikat textiles made with a young weaver Nency Dwi Ratna from the island of Sumba in Indonesia through the support of curator Alia Swastika. For this ten-month project, the weaver closely followed traditional methods passed down through her mother. As a tribute to the tradition, hand-spun yarn from locally sourced cotton and plant based-dye from hand-picked native plants took the form of a local totem ‘lobster’ that symbolizes re- generation. Every step of the preparation follows the natural rhythms of the land. What seems to be mundane labor manifests into sacred geometries representing the interdependence of micro and macro cosmologies.

At National Taichung Theatre’s Art Corner, Tsai will create site-specific drawings that fill the seven by six meter large window panels of the opera house with rice paper painted with natural pigments. As a durational performance, she will write the Mantra of Light on the drawing. The entire performance will be documented and published online. Additional drawings, using pigment extracts from minerals found in the cave paintings along the trade routes where Heart Sutra travelled through from India to East Asia during the Tang Dynasty, will also be exhibited at the main space.

Exhibition Events:

Sunday, 31 January 2021

14:30 Opening Ceremony

15:00 Artist in conversation with Dr. Jau-Lan Guo and guided tour

《兩界》— 蔡佳葳個展

展覽日期 | 2021 年 01 月 31 日至 2021 年 5 月 30 日

開幕 | 2021 年 1 月 31 日，下午 14:30 - 16:30

地點 | 臺中陸府植深館

《兩界》— 蔡佳葳個展展覽名稱中的「兩界」，取自日本高野山真言宗的「金 剛界」與「胎藏界」曼陀羅圖形，除了雙雙指涉宇宙秩序，這組詞彙同時具有 堅固與柔軟並存、陽剛與陰柔共濟的非二元論意涵。藝術家蔡佳葳近年專注探 索自五世紀以來密續傳播途徑所抵達的據點，藉著高密度的勞動交換，重新尋 求與對立他方共振的各種可能。

如果蔡佳葳早期作品是尋求將理知停頓、靜默、懸置，並與有機材料合作共 (度)渡非人類中心之境的話，那麼「兩界」展覽則是明敏地將殊異宇宙觀的 兩造，編織在以藝術為名的勞動事件之中; 「編織」，在這裡，除了是傳統智慧 所奠基的勞動與生活，也是今日活躍於全球當代藝術的蔡佳葳透過藝術行動所 連結的兩造，一方是透過當代藝術機制所取得的藝術語言、全球移動以及展覽 資源，另一方是薩滿仍舊活躍其中，文化滅絕威脅卻不曾停歇的印尼與蒙古的 婦女編織。透過藝術家的「織造」，雙方共享了殊異宇宙觀下的兩個截然不同 的世界:編織婦女在她們熟悉的編織工藝中領會藝術家轉換而來的曼陀羅圖形 (也是一種世界秩序圖景)，藝術家則轉譯傳統智慧於當代藝術語境中，藉展 演之力重新形塑編織文化所來自的傳統智慧。

展覽開幕活動:

2021 年 1 月 31 日 週日

14:30 展覽開幕

15:00 藝術家暨策展人 對談講座與導覽