Cicada molting is a process that is fascinating to me.
The molting signifies that the larvae are becoming strong. Inspired by this process, my work sheds the consumer armature of everyday objects in my apartment. The process feels like a cleansing. The embellishments of corporate design are stripped away, and my relationship to objects in space is made more ethereal. Everything can breathe again. The skeletal mesh outlines delineate things but their materiality is sacrificed for the sake of a more open and meditative perception of the environment. The process is also healing and therapeutic, an antidote to the traumatic aftermath of a severe car accident in which, although nobody was seriously injured, we were shaken by the disruption of our complacent assumptions about our mortality. My accompanying Buster-Keaton-influenced video of routines performed with the mesh forms adds a twist of absurdity to the ghostliness of voided forms.
(Xiyun Xu, 2021)
Wish You Lucky Food
Derscription:
Restaurants serve a function of mental health recovery in Chinese culture. Acting as an I'Ching diviner of fortune, artist Xiyun Xu presents a game-like performance at JJ Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn. Participants get suggestions and lucky food foreseeing via I'Ching fortune-telling and table chat. This project aims to keep people's boredom away and catch their eyes on unexpected foods.
This project include three phases:




I’Ching Divination (Phase 1)
April 11,2021,JJ Kitchen,Brooklyn,NY
I Ching card deck, Fu sign, Incense, Restaurant chairs&table, Cookies
Documentation: https://vimeo.com/547772532
Photographer: Arthur Wang
Food Target (Window Installation) (Phase 2)
April 21 -28,2021,JJ Kitchen,Brooklyn,NY
Color paper
Photographer: Xiyun Xu


Lucky Food Exchange (Phase 3)
May 10,2021,JJ Kitchen,Brooklyn,NY
Wood, Paper menu, Notes, Cookies
Documentation: https://vimeo.com/547767809
https://vimeo.com/547764387
https://vimeo.com/547764409
Photographer: Xiyun Xu
Reviews On Social Media:


Participants in dcocumentation:

Randy

Olga

Pei

Simon


Adina

Ryan
Xiao

Ralph& Jed& Candy

Mr. Lai( JJ Kitchen employee ) with me