Interview with multi media artist Charwei Tsai

Charwei Tsai, is a Taiwanese-born multi media artist (b. 1980). Her visual identity, is meant to be influential, and current. She graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 2002 and L’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris 2010. In 2005, she began publishing Lovely Daze, a curatorial journal of artists’ writings and art found all over the world in library collections at the Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, MoMA and Queensland Art Gallery.

For more about her bio, read here.

Tell us about yourself and career highlights Charwei.

My practice may be seen as two parts: One that is more introspective where I inscribe spiritual texts on mostly ephemeral materials as a method to internalize their meanings. The other part is more social where I publish works and writings by artists through my publication Lovely Daze and collaborate on social projects.

What I see as a career highlight, in terms of how meaningful the project was for me, was a series of song recordings that I made in collaboration with Tsering Tashi Gyalthang. Tsering is a Tibetan filmmaker who was born and raised in the exile community in Dharamsala in India. Together we recorded songs sang by people who are suffering from displacement issues rooted in political, economical, and climate crisis. This includes songs by a group of women asylum seekers in the UK, migrant workers from Southeast Asia and Africa who work under harsh conditions in Taiwan, and earthquake victims in Nepal.

Greatest inspirations or influences

As I spend more time in Asia in the recent years, I started to form personal connections with the indigenous communities here. I feel especially inspired by how they live in accordance with nature. Also, in many spiritual traditions, knowledge and wisdom are often transmitted orally. Therefore, I get my inspirations from listening to songs and oral recordings from various communities. Through hearing the voices of people and the sound coming from natural materials that the instruments are made from, I am able to experience the different stories that are passed down in each generation.

Challenges of the art industry as it is today.

Challenges that the art industry face are perhaps reflections of all industries worldwide is the increasing gap between the far right and the far left. Sometimes artists who are successfully commercially may lose in touch with the struggles of artists who are working with very limited resources in order to fight against a greater cause. Artists who are struggling sometimes disengage with other areas of the art world out of despise for greed of money and power. I think both could find a balance and work to support each other.

I know traveling is a big part of your life as an artist, does that still hold true, and if so what are the places you feel inspire not only your art but your writing as well.

My recent projects take place in Mongolia, Indonesia, and Japan. At first, I didn’t know how to make connections between the three very different cultures and geographic locations. Later on, I found a map that traces how tantric Buddhism, a lineage that I study, had spread across Asia. Then I noticed that the masters of Nalanda University in India started to collect tantric teachings in the 5th century and these teachings spread furthest north to Mongolia, furthest south to Java in Indonesia, and furthest east to Koyasan in Japan. After this realization, I started doing small pilgrimages in these three areas. The projects on these sites may not directly address the pilgrimages, but they are indirectly inspired by them.

I would like to know more about Lovely Daze

I see Lovely Daze as a life project. It is a curatorial journal featuring artists who I meet or feel inspired by topics that I am thinking of around the time of publishing. For example there are issues about solitude, pilgrimage, nature, travel...etc. I don’t review other artists’ work, I present their original writings. I started it the same year I first started exhibiting in 2005. It was inspired by my experience of a young artist’s community. I was less active with publishing in the last couple of years as my own workload as an artist was piling up. Now I am able to find a balance again, I am preparing the next issue for next January.

I am always surprised by how much the younger generation appreciates Lovely Daze. It has inspired many younger friends to initiate small creative projects independent of their professions. In terms of how it has evolved, for the next special edition, I would like to feature women artists who started community projects initiatives on their own, for example, working with children or the environment that are not necessarily for exhibitions.

Another big joy of working on Lovely Daze is the events that I do where I invite artists who are also musicians to perform for the book launch. I have worked with Mark Borthwick, Hisham Bharoocha, Lizzie Bougatsos, Mika Tajima and Howie Chen in the past. Since I have been spending more time in Asia, I will also invite sound artists from Indonesia and Mongolia for the next launches.

Favourite websites, publications or social media handles you enjoy to follow?

1. For art, I love the instagram posts by Andrianna Campbell and her writings on the artworks.

2. For music, I recently met a musician Stephen O'Malley in Paris who, in addition to the music he creates, produces wonderful recordings from across the world.

3. For film, I have been following http://www.ubu.com since I was living in New York over ten years ago.

4. For books, definitely Printed Matter the world's biggest independent artist's bookshop where I found my first part-time job.

5. For dance, Kobalt Works, led by the choreographer Arco Renz who I will feature in the next issue of Lovely Daze.
   
   Cover Art Charwei Tsai, Lanyu: Three Stories, 2012, Video
   In collaboration with Tsering Tashi Gyalthang