Raw ⇆ Ripened ⇆ Happiness
Description of the exhibition
In her series Raw ⇆ Ripened ⇆ Happiness, Ciwas Tahos uses her flesh as a primary material to explore how stamping was traditionally used to identify Indigenous peoples in her native Taiwan, branding them with a mark to categorize them in official documents. Actively scrubbing away identities through this act, governments have wielded the officiality of red ink as bureaucratic weapons with deep implications for the body. Whether it be in Canada towards Indigenous communities, or in Taiwan, where the Atayal people, of whom Tahos is a descendant, have also been subjected to displacement and cultural erasure, stamps have acted as extensions of state authority.
Tahos’s installation uses machines that wield mallet heads down onto herself repeatedly to create a printing structure that literally transforms her body. Water is present throughout, in the aqueous ink that marks her skin, and in her body itself, which absorbs then reinfuses this moisture in other performative actions that seek to commune with Atayal culture. By stamping her own flesh with text, then transferring that mark onto the gallery walls and floors, Tahos leaves traces of her intervention that linger in the space long after she has gone.
Performance – Ciwas Tahos
Engramme – Printmaking and Contemporary Art Production and Distribution Center
6:15 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.
As part of the Biennale, artist Ciwas Tahos will present a performance at Engramme, a center renowned for its commitment to printmaking and contemporary practices.
The artist takes over the space to offer a sensitive and embodied intervention, where gesture, material, and presence become vectors for direct dialogue with the audience.
This performance offers a special opportunity to discover Ciwas Tahos' work in a lively and ephemeral form, at the heart of a leading venue on the Quebec City art scene.
Free admission – Please arrive a few minutes early.
