Artist in Residence- Tseng Yu Chin

We are excited to welcome Tseng Yu Chin as our artist in residence here in Kristiansand!

Tseng’s journey and work reflect a deep exploration of identity, resilience, and the human experience. He showcases an intriguing ability to transform his personal stories and social issues into powerful works of art. Videos, photography, sounds, drawing with mixed media and the use of everyday objects are all part of the process of his creation and presentation, placed and presented in his studio and various exhibition spaces. 

Tseng Yu Chins journey is a true testament to the brutality of the Chinese-speaking world. Born into a family of disturbed origin, identity, and mental confusion, with two grandfathers of Japanese soldiers, a grandmother of Dutch descent, and a father in the Taiwanese military, his mother suffered from long-term mental illness, and the family was unusually cold, and he and his older sister were both victims of child abuse. He was raped by a man as a teenager without anyone believing it, and was severely bullied by his professors and classmates at college because of his homosexuality. He has built up a whole system of survival and rules in his brain for a long time, and as he grows up in this way, art creation is the way he must and needs to survive.

Starting with the production of objects, low-end digital photography and experimental video, the artist has been working on extended cinema and post- cinema for a long time, and believes in the power of anger, his works being exhibited in the world’s most important galleries. 29 years old, his «Who is listening» series was selected at the 12th Kassel Documenta in Germany, the youngest artist of that year, and the following year he was awarded the Chinese Contemporary Art Prize, thus becoming one of the most representative video artists in the world at that time. A unique video language, mixing Western films and Eastern photographic visual aesthetics, breaking away from the rigid visual language of global art, his works make it difficult to define national boundaries, excelling in transforming spirituality and poetry into visual video and sound works, He believes in using video to write poetry, and in the power of anger, focusing on bullying, ignorance, queer issues, childhood mental abuse, physical identity, social and political indifference and hatred, racial mixing, discrimination, homelessness , confusion, obsession, indifference, sadness, physical torture, hierarchical oppression, group consciousness lament, irony, and loneliness. With his unique style and presentation, the Chinese-speaking world calls him: a unique, but not to be ignored, presence!

In Kristiansand, Yu Chin hopes to meet as many people and artists as possible, explore the different kinds of lives people leads and feel how humanity is changing, which for Yu Chin has a strong relevance to the content of his artworks.

Currently, he is exploring the Artist in Residence space with a with a work he calls «A Room of No One’s»,  consisting of both photography and video. The work revolves around the identity and situation of a person who is detained in a situation that is not discussed. 
 

Visit Tseng Yu Chin’s webpage here: https://tsengyuchin.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/howl_howl_howl/

Contact Tseng Yu Chin at: tseng.yuchin.art@gmail.com

 

Tseng Yu Chin and Lisbeth Skranes at the opening of a printing exhibition at FÖNSTER. Photo: Sidsel Jørgensen

Are you from an awful country? (2024/2025)

He approached gently, as if trying to whisper, but his voice was loud enough to be heard by those around him .

He said: Are you from a awful country?

I was stunned and didn’t know how to respond. I thought to myself, ‘Aren’t we all in a terrible state?

He waved his hand, like he was waving off his attitude, and walked away.

Artwork link

A Room of No One’s (2025)