Hsu Che-Yu, Chen Wan-Yin: A Few Exercises in Mourning

If we view the body as a measuring tool for boundaries, distinguishing "catastrophes" as two scenarios—internal and external—the former can encompass diseases, drives of death, and the wasteful legacies of biological evolution, while the latter includes geological plate misalignments, climate anomalies, social turmoil, and wars. At certain special moments, catastrophes both internal and external to the body may forcibly overlap.

A Few Exercises in Mourning is an artist book collaboratively created by Hsu Che-Yu and Chen Wan-Yin, designed and edited by dmp editions. Within its pages, the visual components concentrate on three artworks that delve into themes of death, commemoration, and bodily hallucination: Blank Photograph, in which a former bomber reenacts the suicide of his brother; Grey Room, a VR experience that takes the viewer into childhood memories shaped by diplopia; and Zoo Hypothesis, a reconstruction of an animal memorial ceremony from World War II. Through various 3D scanning techniques, Hsu and Chen navigate a desaturated digital terrain of grayscale models, embarking on an exploration of “mourning techniques,” a passage through sensory catastrophe and neural residue.

The publication also features two essays: One is a lecture-performance script co-written with dramaturg Betty Yi-Chun Chen, first presented at Theater der Welt in Germany in 2023. The other is a conceptual essay “A Few Exercises in Mourning and Notes on Catastrophism,” co-authored by the artists as a reflection on the philosophical underpinnings of their recent works.