Yitu ࿐
China, 1996
yitubutu@outlook.com
Thesis: The Faraway Place I’m Seeking Is Where I Come From
Arrival of Depature
How to make visible the unknown path we’re treading along? Can performance be a manifestation of it? Of beings revealed as porous, open about their current circumstances which can be so difficult to name? More immersed in the flow of uncertainty?
Yitu sets up situations. Visitors are given instructions, actually scores to the piece to come, which they will contribute to shaping. Yitu’s work makes instructions become ways to rename things. Their framework wants to free up space to allow for shape-shifting. When talking to the artist, they mentioned the importance of the Buddhist belief in bardo, an intermediate liminal state between death and rebirth; a place of transformations.
I remember reading that in a ritual performance there are no spectators, only participants. Everyone who is witnessing is involved in a process of actualisation and self-transformation. In Yitu’s practice staircases may stand for a passage of state, and people making their way up and down are asked to perform actions which signal constant change and a sensory perception of time. A door slams. A scream breaks through the space. Drawings evoke such patterns. Perhaps a message written on a piece of paper will resonate much louder in the coming days.
By Giulia Damiani
