Born (in 1961) and grew up in Taipei, Yeh Tzu-Chi now lives in Tainan, Taiwan. With a background of English literature, she had been an editor, an English lecturer and a freelance writer / translator before she turned to performance art in 2002. Since then she has joined international performance art festivals/events in different cities of Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Philippine, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Finland, Israel, Croatia, Canada, Mexico, United States, Germany, Switzerland, Chile, and Argentina. She founded ArTrend Performance Group in 2003 and has organized several local and international performance art events/festivals domestically.
The core idea of her art may be to discover and shape art in daily life; while in art reshape and rethink about daily life. Her themes are broad such as: self-healing, woman experience, animal rights, various relationships (gender, human to human, human to animal, human to nature, human to society …), politics and history of individual and nation, environment, and poetry, etc. Her form is open to any experiment, but basically, she uses minimalist ready-made objects to reduce harm to the environment and the earth.
https://yehtzuchiart.wordpress.com
performance art event ArTrend organized by Tzu-Chi http://artrendperfogrup.blogspot.com
Title: Sun Party
date: 2019/11/14
venue : Balmaceda Arte Joven, Valparaiso, Chile
project: CuerpAs International Performance Art Festival
curator: Alexander Del Re
In the latter half of 2019s, Hangkongers on the street to protest Extradition Law wear masks to protect themselves from being recognized by the police and also from the poisonous tear gas. The far away Chileans do the same thing since October as they protest against the current government. And for me, I’ve worn mask quite often in recent years due to the serious air pollution in my own country.
Title: IN & OUT REENACT
date: 2017/10/7
venue : Treasure Hill Art Village, Taipei, Taiwan
curator: Liping Ting
She invites audience to join her one by one, and then leave one by one.
Title: WOMAN WITHOUT FACE
date:2017/4/15
venue : feat Sabina Cienega Leyva and Ana Miriam Espino Garcia Norogachi, Chihuahua, Mexico
project: Performancear o Morir
curator: Gustavo Alvarez
An improvisation she does with two Raramuri women who work in the kitchen of Alba’s house.
Title: Wind Sonata
date:2012/10/24
venue : Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, South Korea
She hides in the big pile of dry leaves, waiting for the wind to take them away from her. It’s a performance of her and nature: wind, leaves, sunlight, and time.
Title: Hands Up
date: 2012/3/13
venue : China Academy of Arts, HangZhou, China
project: In & Out of Heaven Art Event
curator: Cai Qing
Title: FLASH PERFORMANCE
date: 2012/3/12
venue : ShiWuDong, HangZhou, China
project: In & Out of Heaven Art Event
curator: Cai Qing
She collect audiences’ mobile numbers and text them where and when to do performance. They gather 3 times to do 3 individual performance.
Title: THE WORLD OUTSIDE
date: 2011/10/8
venue : Guan Jia Lin Art Base, Chong Qing, China
An improvisational performance she did in Wang Rui’s studio. she piled up different wooden boxes and chairs, climbed to the top, and looked out from the window.
Title: SHADOW
date: 2009/6/1
venue : Myanmar Art and Culture Center, Yangon, Myanmar
project: Beyond Pressure International Performance Art Event
curator: Moe Satt
They draw their own shapes on the wall and throw eggs with red acrylic inside on them.
Title: Dark
date: 2008/11/8
venue : Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Bangkok, Thailand
project: Asiatopia International Performance Art Festival
curator: Chumpon Apisuk
She blindfold herself and slowly lower herself from head to toe, chair to floor.
Title: SIGN
date: 2008 /9 /20
venue : Tel Aviv, Israel
project: ZAZ International Performance Art Festival
curator: Tamar Raban
There was a black cloth about 5-6 meters long on the ground. A table with 2 chairs on one side. She started to write in English, sky and sea. Birds singing. It’s a cloth. It’s not a cloth. Tunnel. It’s tunnel, two cloth tunnels. Now she want to invite one of them to crawl through the tunnels, with her and without her.
Title: SOMETHING ABOUT LOVE
date: 2004/9/3
venue : 798 Art Zone, Beijing, China
project: Open Art Festival
curator: Chen Jin
She writes a poem about an unsuccessful relation. She lies down to have the ink print on her body several times during writing. Finished writing, She tears the paper and burn it.
Title: Traditional Chinese
date: 2003/09/07
venue : Tainan National Univ. of Arts / Tainan / Taiwan
project: ArTrend Late Summer Event
video： Chen Bo-Wen
…………”I grew up in such a culture and was deeply constrained by such values, so it was extremely difficult for me to take off my clothes and perform a nude performance! But if art is about freedom, truth, equality, transcendence, and resistance to oppression, in order to pursue a better self and society, then we must courageously face our own cowardice, challenge ourselves, and recapture women’s autonomy of our own body……….. In addition, the traditional Chinese written on me seems to make this performance a political metaphor. In the overall Chinese society, only Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao (about 30 million people) use Traditional Chinese, and the mainland China (more than 1 billion people) uses Simplified Chinese. In comparison, Traditional Chinese is absolutely weak, just like Taiwan’s national strength when compared to the mainland China. Keeping traditional Chinese and Taiwan’s lifeblood then are both difficult and hard work, just like I have to work/row very hard to reach the preset end point! ………….”
Title: Human Egg vs. Animal Egg
date: 2004/3/7
venue : Kaohsiung, Taiwan
project: Taiwan International Performance Art Festival
At this time, Tzu-chi was 43 years old and pregnant. The performance was held in a park in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. She asked the audience to break 10 (or more?) chicken eggs, put them in a transparent container and add ketchup there. She took off her top and bottom. The concept for the performance was human eggs vs. animal eggs. She asked people to put the egg and the ketchup in her mouth, but she can’t have, so they went on her naked body.