My starting point is the human body itself. Asking “what the body can become” with my own body, I see performance as a powerful lens with which to view the world as an open possibility—exploring the open-ended question of what is meant to be a human being within the dynamic, continuously ongoing movement of life and a living body as part of the grand scheme of things. Here, art is not just a place to look at, but a place we already exist in and exist together, the place in which the inner life of things triggers perception and reveals affective feelings that invites us to a deeper level of connection with ourselves and the world, a world of becoming. From this perspective, my work focuses on what causes agency from within the human body and novelty, and in turn, explores how this emergence, revealed through physical expression, brings us to a more nuanced, insightful, embodied understanding of the body itself and has a meaningful impact on the real-world. In this way, I use performance as both artistic practice and method of inquiry to investigate the know-how of my ideas. Through this endeavor, I blur the boundaries between art and life in an attempt to bring about radical social change.

We are really transitioning into a very uncertain period of time for the future of humanity. Nowadays, in this broader global socio-political-ecological crisis and technological disembodiment, what does it mean to “have a body,” or in other words, “to be a body?” I believe in the creative power of art to give a material, experiential form to ideas that influence our way of thinking, and especially in physical expression to articulate and manifest something deeply embedded in human nature–leading to a reconsideration of how we as humans perceive and engage with life. By beginning with the ecology of the performing body, I think through my felt body and its movement where I encounter my own truth. This course becomes an embodied kind of research and an extension of my personal life in which I critically study my own body, and I develop principles and practice. Here, the experiential meets the intellectual–where being and knowing work inextricably together–forming a more comprehensive understanding, both conceptual and embodied, around the human body overall. In this way, I investigate the inherent creativity of the body and express its authenticity, highlighting the politics of the body. From this standpoint, the most important aspect of my work is the ethos of being a creator—to affect and be affected. In this dynamic tension, can social change be possible?

I see this change as an individual path towards embodied understanding—an ongoing process of challenging oneself, exploring one’s limitations and taking important risks that leads one to give material form to that which has not yet manifested. The human body is situated at the edge of potential, between the possible and the impossible, the boundary between which is not fixed, but rather constantly dynamic and changing, shifting and expanding within the immediate present. While art is a lens through which humans give an expanded form to life, performance shines through as a meeting point of synchronization between the artist and the artwork, the act of creation and the creation, the artist and the audience—in this inseparable encounter where the performer’s body presents and gives its tangible answer to what it means to be human. This body removes all the extra layers to unmediated convey a sense of simplicity and naturalness through its physical forms which expresses the secular spirituality of abstract. This expression resists fixed identities, and intensifies the proximity to the unknown between the performer and the audience in their sharing space of co-existence—a gap or distance that seeks a collective, embodied understanding. With the human body serving as the source material and the connection point between art and life, my research project Morphoplastics re-envisions the field of performance, while attempting to redefine what the human body is, within and beyond art. The art of being and knowing.