OPEN STUDIO | 27-28-29-30 October 2022
LIVE PERFORMANCE | October 30, 18:00
INFO | residencies@zaratan.pt
SUPPORT | República Portuguesa – Cultura / Direção-Geral das Artes

We are glad to present the latest project by Xiyao Chen developed during her time in Lisbon.

"Soft Bodies, Hard Sun" is a more-than-human performance retelling stories of collaborative survivals in the thick, sluggish, toxic mix of the pluri-presence. It is the outcome of a one-month artist residency at Zaratan nurturing multi-species kinships - tinkering with cactus, fiddling with jellyfish, juggling with eucalyptus seeds and learning to surrender to water.

Situated at the intersection between belief system and weather system, new myths are constructed and perpetuated through washed up morphing objects and evolving organisms on the local beaches in Lisboa. Voices of the more-than-human beings are enacted with live coding sound generation algorithms, channelled through the living cells of Patrícia Domingues (voice) and Xiyao Chen (DIY instruments), also known as Daughters of Waves.

Accompanying the performance, an open studio exhibition has been held to showcase the visual scores, objects of offerings among other foraged artefacts exploring the entanglement of interspecies kinships.

 

PERFORMERS BIO:

PATRÍCIA DOMINGUES is a free Singer. She has been practicing to allow the free flow of the voice, the singing, the energy (the present emotions, pure intentions, messages that arise) through singing, in the moment of sharing with others musicians/performers/artists, and with the spectator. Studied at the "Escola de Música do Conservatório Nacional" (Portuguese Conservatorium of Music), and did sing with the Gulbenkian Choir, which gave her the contact with great musical works, authors and performers. She has also participated in Theatre plays and performances, as singer, dancer and actress.

XIYAO CHEN is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher operating in the fluid zone of digital anthropology, sonic sculpture, moving images and agroecology. Her artistic practice and research focus is driven in response to the imminent climate crisis and rethinking the entangled hybrid environments where human, machine and nature coexist interdependently, where distinctions between the organism and machine, physical and virtual have become increasingly leaky.

CATOSTYLUS TAGI is the most commonly occurring jellyfish across the coasts of mainland Portugal. It is easily sighted near ports and marinas, particularly near the Tagus and Sado Rivers. Although a nomadic soul, it is mainly based in water bodies with temperatures between 7 to 33 °C and salinity between 1 to 37%. It practices plastic ingestion on a daily basis and loves blowing bubbles to pass stories to future generations. It spends half of its life in the planktonic stage and speeds up its life cycle two or three times when the climate gets warmer. 

LINKS:  www.worldsworldworlds.xyz | @oayixnehc