WONG SIN

A Happening Regarding Death and Endings, 2024

關於死亡和結束的偶發事件
Performance

11mins 11sec

Taipei Artbook Fair, Taiwan

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The performance was finished at exactly 11mins11sec.

It wasn’t raining indoors; everything around was lively and colorful. I wondered whether, when a person dies or comes to an end, the sky pours with heavy rain—maybe it’s just tears, or maybe there’s nothing at all.

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I opened a black umbrella in the lively Taiwan Art Book Fair and moved through the crowd, spontaneously performing a piece of live performance art within the exhibition space.

In November 2024, the Japanese poet Shuntaro Tanikawa passed away; 47 pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong were sentenced; and Pluto transited across the Sun. Perhaps within everyone, there lingers a faint shadow of death. During that period, the presence of death and endings drifted before us like the wind.

I used the color black—often seen in funerals—as a gesture of mourning for what has passed. Walking with an umbrella inside the noisy fair, I created a contrast as a silent reflection on the fragility of life, while also suggesting a kind of resistance to death.

This performance was highly intuitive and improvised. It also marked the beginning of a material I would continue to use in my later performance works as a more formal starting point.

 

“Happening about Death (Taipei) written by Ma Wik

November brought the death of poet Shuntaro Tanikawa， the verdict in the 47-democrats case, and Pluto's transit. Even the little death inside everyone. Shadows of death and closure drifted in front of us like the wind. The most interesting point of a spinning 爆転シュートベイブレード is the moment when it spins out, and death and closure are the prelude to the arrival of something new. The arrow that shoots towards death doesn't know what it might go through, so we present the moment before the end and wash our hands like a man on a bloody mission.

Photos by : Scarlett Hung
Title by : Ma wik

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