“Citing Bar” is a platform exploring feminist environmental humanities. As a Mandarin homophone for “drinking”, the title “citing” also acts as a ritual of nurturing both the body and the holistic connection to nature. Additionally it pays homage to the evolving concept of the “politics of citation” aligning the core spirit of the project, that is, to acknowledge origins, borders and ordeals, thereby fostering a sense of solidarity for the purpose of enabling the prosperity of land, the environment, human and more-than-human alike. While stimulating cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural collaborations, “Citing Bar” aims to broaden the spectrum of knowledge, ecological wisdom and...
Written by Hung-Fei WU Dear Friends, your love is persistence in living. Your love refuses closure. Your love reveals plurality and opens portals. Your love claims the broken beautiful as a site for freedom beyond able-bodied supremacy. Your love shifts paradigms. Your love works with plants. Your love creates the condition of possibility for making the world anew. In the absence of official records, your love remembers.── A Decolonial Feminist Epistemology of the Bed Building on the previous writing that explored non-linear, heterogeneous, and fluid imaginings of time through rest, this opening invites the reader to...
Written by Hung-Fei WU In the face of the complexity of global geopolitics, economics, and ecology interwoven with unprecedented crises, humanity can no longer simply extract discussions of the environment or climate crisis in a compartmentalized manner. Instead, sustainability should be seen as an embodiment of the human spirit of care and justice towards all life on Earth and marginalized communities. Since 2022, I have been engaged in researching the discipline of Feminist Environmental Humanities (FEH) advocated by cultural scholars Jennifer Hamilton and Astrida Neimanis. There is no such difference from the more commonly known Ecofeminism (proposed in 1974 by...
Written by Hung-Fei WU In the autumn of 2022, I once again set foot on the European continent after a hiatus of four years. Apart from hoping to fill the gap caused by the pandemic and reconnecting the bridge between cultures, there was also curiosity about the progress of contemporary art in Europe in the midst of these tumultuous four years since my previous research project, “On the edge of Europe: Exploring the Intersection of Art and Ecology.” How much progress has been made in the discussion of ecological sustainability during this time, and in which directions has it advanced,...
Citing Bar II – Himali Singh Soin Text: Feng-Yi Chu Solid Art’s “Citing Bar” introduces its second project featuring artist Himali Singh Soin with two of her recent series “As Grand As What” and “we are opposite like that”. Both works encompass a diverse range of mediums, including video, artist books, sound installations, performances, photographic works, and textiles. This article, in collaboration with artist Lin Yi-Chun, echoes the concept of “Citing Bar” by designing four spirituous libations based on four key concepts related to Himali’s art. While dissecting Himali’s artistic practice, this article further explores how and why these four...
Citing Bar I – Bear Hole Text: Bo-Yi Shen There is no start or end, only the process of a fall, diving infinitely towards a ground being stripped of its foundation. The worldly body gradually blends into oceans, deserts, volcanos, the sky, and the wilderness. The body separates from the self in unceasing motion, as eyesight begins to unravel, the ears fade into silence, and the skin touches the planets, its membrane expanding steadily yet explosively, feeling the rough, intricate, fierce, and steady energy of physical matter. The self is constantly lost in the fall as you strive to pick...