AND, OR, NOT

A Solo Exhibition by Vivian Chiu

September 23 - December 15 2023

“Chinese femininity is not only more and less than human but also man-made; not only assembled but also reassembled. This reassemblage, by virtue of its materiality, memorializes the practice of ornamentalism and the techniques of race making.” 

- Anne Anlin Cheng, in Ornamentalism: A Feminist Theory for the Yellow Woman

When shapes shift, what is left exposed?

What is left raw? 

What is left tender? 

‘AND , OR, NOT’ is a solo exhibition by Vivian Chiu featuring a new body of split-turned wood sculptures. Using the process of deconstructing and reconstructing wooden forms turned on the lathe, Chiu asks: What new forms emerge, when ‘the whole’ becomes a part? This question is fed by mathematical Boolean operations, which allow disparate shapes to combine or exclude into both hybrids and voids. Similarly, the split-turning process takes forms and splits them along the vertical axis, allowing recombination and reconfiguration as they unite, subtract, and intersect. 

Traditionally used for decorative purposes or ornaments, split turning has also been a way for Chiu to explore the concept of ‘Ornamentalism,’  Anne Anlin Cheng’s term for the particular way that Asian femininity is objectified. Ornamentalism poses the idea that the Asian feminine body, unlike other racially objectified bodies, is seen as ornamentation and decorative – closer to fine china and silk, an object of commodity. This seems to capture a tension that Chiu’s work grapples with: that identity is something both ephemeral and inescapable, both assigned and experienced.  For those of us who inhabit multiple worlds, our identities often feel hybrid, negotiated through the acts of assimilating, adjusting, and missing

What new life does this hybrid form take on?  

This question is essentially one of shape-shifting. What begins as two distinct forms becomes a third thing when recombined, but also results in a series of new two-dimensional shapes, defined by the intersection of edges, which emerge on each form’s flat plane. In this way, split turning also becomes a formal exploration into negative space through the planar shape that remains exposed as the forms join together. 

This can be a reminder that assimilation is an asymmetrical and sometimes unpredictable process that leaves parts of us raw, exposed, or vulnerable. As a queer person, as a woman in the male dominated world of woodworking, as an Asian person in America,  Chiu is no stranger to the act of shape-shifting to survive and adapt to different contexts. These works grapple with defining the shape of the space between the multiple worlds that we inhabit, giving form to the void.