HsinYing Lin

HsinYing Lin is a performance artist who has performed and exhibited in the United Kingdom and Taiwan. Recent exhibitions in the UK include the Tate Library, Five Years Gallery, Candid Arts Trust, and the The Royal Scottish Academy 198th Annual Exhibition in Edinburgh. Her awards include being shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Visual Art Prize, a scholarship of excellence from University of Southampton, and multiple recognitions from the NTNU Photography Competitions.

The performance art of HsinYing Lin entails metaphor and irony on topics such as powerlessness, lack of control, vulnerability, and hierarchy of existence. In performances such as Surrender Project and The Speech, HsinYing Lin uses her own bodily autonomy to convey conceptual communication on variable themes of futility. Viewing her works in both photography and video, the audience may feel as if they are not only a speck in the universe, but also a grain in the sack of society. In Surrender Project, which takes place in both London and Taiwan, the artist lays flat on uneven surfaces amongst public locations such as urban streets and alleys, railroad tracks, stairs made from steel, stone, and concrete, in both natural locations such as a shoreline pier or industrial areas like a warehouse. These postures appear incredibly uncomfortable and appear to command a great deal of autonomy as well as discipline of the body. The conceptual approach for the performance would be the artist is ‘surrendering’ herself to these environments, whether they be hostile, inappropriate, dangerous, or sublime. HsinYing Lin’s stiff motionlessness represents a state of suspension or even death, as she becomes one with the environment metaphorically in the same category as a corpse unifying with the earth upon decay and erosion of biology. 

In The Speech, HsinYing Lin voices over a deep male voice (played by Barrington Hutchinson). The video is a recreation of The Great Dictator film from 1940, starring Charlie Chaplin. HsinYing Lin lipsyncs to the speech with ominous texts interrupting the original iteration of the passage. When the male voice states specific classes of people, he notably leaves out women and Asians. The artist is sure to remind the audience as a woman and Taiwanese-British citizen, she does indeed exist. HsinYing Lin interjects herself not through voice, but with silence and texts. Towards the end of the speech, the speaker notes how his voice will be heard by millions around the world. Ironically, the artist is silent representing her state of invisibility within Western society. Both The Speech and Surrender Project depicts a performance artist willing to tackle sociological, psychological, and philosophical concepts on the great question: Do we really matter? These performance works are especially relevant today where individuality and personal expression has caved in to institutionalized power and digitized realms. 

Surrender Project-Existence (pictured above) depicts the artist on a steel staircase within a warehouse. The posture appears painful as she lays still in a manner similar to the objects within the interior of the facility. This piece along with the rest of the Surrender Project, represents a sense of civilizational, suburban, and urban nihilism. Because wherever she goes, her posture remains the same, expressing the same futility within her environments. 

Deeply conceptual, the performance art of HsinYing Lin represents a sense of enhancing dialogue on purpose and value. Her works has us question our intrinsic merit to society as human beings on this planet amongst 8-9 billion people. The performances, in essence, acts as a communicative conduit to reach others, encouraging them to break out of their confined shell imposed by others or surrender helplessly to the endless void.

https://www.linhsinying.com