Jing Xie
This exhibition, Back Off, is part of my latest ongoing project Better Words, a project that came into being during my Covid-19 quarantine. Better Words questions how forms of power penetrate our daily lives, and reflects on how they shape our behavior; such issues were made more conspicuous within the context of a global pandemic. They are permeating into our lives in a much more intelligent way, without force yet subtly luring us towards self-exposure. We are headed into a more accelerative and anxious era. This project, in addition, hopes to explore interpersonal relationships and how individuals survive by questioning our empathy and intersubjectivity, especially in the now, when the collective humanity faces a sudden, unexpected global crisis. We must admit and realize the innate vulnerability of life, which is preceded by violence; we must reflect on how we are connected with others, and on the same basis, care for others.
On the other hand, the crisis of the pandemic acted as a magnifying glass, amplifying tensions in all kinds of relationships, making the body more sensitive and sensory organs sharper. Fortunately, however, I was able to feel life, feel time flowing and pulsing with life. It enabled us, briefly, to escape from a world of universal deficiency, and from our frantic pursuit and sacrifice of an illusory future, even if it came with the cost of overloading the individual, and even though we will eventually return to the more fanatical reality; still, I am wondering if they have summoned a real will and true desires. At the moment, the passage of time does not run smoothly and unnoticed like slide wires; we were made to pay an extremely harsh price in order to re-capture time and repair our ability to feel it. It gives those who perhaps don’t align with the world a chance to rectify their name, and with this, we may finally find our way out.
In the beginning of the pandemic, we had to rely on others’ judgments as our reference, with everyone hesitating and in an unstable state. We were collectively vacillating between trusting or doubting sources of information, self-doubting, and constantly trying to find a foothold and a safe habitation. People were in a constant state of struggle and exhaustion. Being against a wall is an attempt to subconsciously search for a safe space; standing with your back against a wall is a representation of security-seeking behavior but also a forced move of being oppressed, because it often involves an external force representing compression, contraction, and being pushed that are all inevitable. Part of my work will push toward this kind of tension zone.
In this series of works, there are contemplation, judgment, expectation, and a potential path to resistance. Let us return to feeling these perceptual things that existed, and to the perceptive experience of their time-ness, in order to resist the unseen violence and obscenity. Then open ourselves to the unfinished and unknown terrain, overcome evil through reflection, accompany others through action, and explore the gaps in between through humble self-reflection and self-inspection. On this account, we will catch a glimpse of the world and continue to move closer to the things we have been searching for.
We live and act like reeds. But even the faintest light can attenuate, in some degree, darkness and fear, which people needed for this kind of light to be spread upon earth sporadically; if a ray of light happens to fall upon an individual body, that should be enough for us to defend its existence.
----- Jing Xie
