PEI-LING HO (Taipei, Taiwan): Absence of Three
- Duration: 7 min
Watch: 3rd December 2017 at 8pm UTC
DESCRIPTION: I rebuild the complex relationship of three family members inside of my family, including father, mother, and myself. By using the video, recording from my parents’ love letter, and the interaction with viewers of melon seeds, those create a family scene in our daily life which everyone in the family just totally absent. In the video, me as a daughter trap in a white curtain and keep calling the word ”dad” in the ocean who try to understand what is the meaning of the word “dad”, and why the word seems so unfamiliar with me. In the recording, the sound of it is mix from my mother and the male voice from google translation of a very mechanical feeling, reading the love letter, which my father wrote to her from Taiwan to USA when they got engaged. During the performance, I act as my mother, an indifferent housewife. In Chinese tradition, tons of melon seeds that put in the red bridge symbolize to having more children in the future, and people usually eat melon seeds on a family union day. Performed as a housewife, she is really passive to the absence of her daughter and husband. However, to be hospitable, she invited the viewers to eat melon seeds with her, which is a symbol of interrupting the absence. However, things just hardly be changed and intervened, in the end of the performance, the construction of absence is still exist which makes viewers to rethink the family issue in our daily life.
BIO: PEI-LING HO was born in Taipei, Taiwan with a complex cultural family background. She is studying in School of Visual Arts with an MFA in Fine Arts, and graduates in National Chengchi University with a BFA in Advertising. Through performance, video, photography and mixed media, PEI-LING explores questions of gender identity and perception within various contexts, ranging from the conflict between exotic and local culture and the legitimacy of parents under social system, and drawing from her experience growing up in Taiwan. She has had group exhibitions include SATELLITE ART SHOW in Miami, the 2nd Ningbo International Photography Week in China, Wonder Foto Awards at G.Gallery in Taipei, 29th Festival Les Instants Vidéo in France and more. Recent reviews and features include People’s Photography, The News Lens, The Reporter and more. PEI-LING currently lives in Manhattan, New York. ARTIST WEBSITE