Hermit Crab Project

2008 - Photography (Photography)

Charwei Tsai

location: Taipei, Taiwan
location: Paris, France
year born: 1980
gender: female
nationality: Taiwanese
home town: Taipei, Taiwan

Charwai Tsai’s photograph documents her Hermit Crab Project installation upon the construction site of gallery Sora in Tokyo. Tsai placed live hermit crabs and shells in a sandy enclosure at the site, writing fragments of The One China policy and the Taiwanese Independence statements on each shell. As the hermit crabs moved and swapped shells, they formed new connections between the statements. Tsai calls attention to the ephemerality of political declarations and makes the movements of animals into metaphors for the changing course of history.


Taiwanese multimedia artist Charwai Tsai often explores geographical, social, and spiritual concerns through performative and ephemeral artworks. She chooses materials that decompose or change to contemplate notions of impermanence and transience. Tsai is also editor-in-chief of “Lovely Daze”, a bi-annual journal of artists’ writings and artworks curated around specific themes for each issue.


Colors:



Other related works, blended automatically

Untitled (Cathedral)
© » KADIST

Tina Modotti

1930

The Italian photographer Tina Modotti is known for her documentation of the mural movement in Mexico...

Diego Rivera Mural: Billionaires Club; Ministry of Education, Mexico D.F., Third Gallery
© » KADIST

Tina Modotti

1927

Modotti’s Diego Rivera Mural: Billionaires Club; Ministry of Education, Mexico D...

n°5 The International Sail
© » KADIST

Enrique Ramirez

2017

Ramirez’s The International Sail is the fifth in a series that features an upside-down worn out, mended and fragmented boat sail...

Choke
© » KADIST

Jennifer Locke

2005

Choke documents the artist filming a wrestler “choking out” his teammate until he is unconscious...

Men (055, 065)
© » KADIST

Elad Lassry

2012

The black-and-white photograph Men (055, 065) (2012) depicts two similarly built young men – young and slim, with dark tousled hair and a square jaw line – seated aside one another in identical outfits...

Mimbres pottery kill hole sequence
© » KADIST

Mariana Castillo Deball

Mariana Castillo Deball’s set of kill hole plates are part of a larger body of work problematizing archeological narratives, and drawing attention to the conservation process and its role in recreating an imagined object...

Untitled (Family Project)
© » KADIST

Motoyuki Daifu

2010

Seven family members and a cat all squeezed into the small five-room house, where Motoyuki Daifu grew up in Yokohama...

Fashion Designer Marc Jacobs Is Selling Off His Entire Art Collection, Including a $3 Million Ed Ruscha - via artnet news
© » LARRY'S LIST

Ed Ruscha

The fashion designer is selling off all the art inside his West Village townhouse at Sotheby’s New York to make way for a new collection....

“Brave Beauties” series - Dimpho Tsotetsi, Parktown
© » KADIST

Zanele Muholi

2014

As a visual activist for the rights of Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LBGTQI), Muholi’s photographs radically transgress the conventional perception of lesbian and transgender communities in South Africa...

That’s That’s Alright Alright Mama Mama
© » KADIST

Mark Soo

2008

The two large-scale stereoscopic photographs in That’s That’s Alright Alright Mama Mama depict a recreation of Elvis Presley’s recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee...

100 Boots
© » KADIST

Eleanor Antin

1973

Comprised of fifty-one photographic postcards, Antin’s 100 Boots is an epic visual narrative in which 100 black rubber boots stand in for a fictional “hero” making a “trip” from California to New York City...

Ante la imagen
© » KADIST

Oscar Munoz

2009

In Ante la imagen (Before the Image, 2009) Muñoz continues to explore the power of a photograph to live up to the memory of a specific person...

Janus
© » KADIST

Miljohn Ruperto

2013

Miljohn Ruperto’s high-definition video Janus takes its name from the two-faced Roman god of duality and transitions, of beginnings and endings, gates and doorways...

Ink Diary
© » KADIST

Chen Shaoxiong

2006

After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...

Collectors’ Favorites
© » KADIST

Jennifer Bornstein

1994

Collectors’ Favorites is an episode of local cable program from the mid-1990s in which ordinary people were invited to present their personal collections—a concept that in many ways anticipates current reality TV shows and internet videos...

Metaphors of the presence or conversations at the speed of light
© » KADIST

Nicolás Paris

2012

Nicolas Paris studied architecture and worked as an elementary school teacher before he decided to become an artist...

Ghost games
© » KADIST

Anri Sala

2002

Ghost Games , follows the enigmatic dance of crabs “steered” by a flashlight in the night of darkness of a South American beach...

Green Box
© » KADIST

Ari Marcopoulos

1998

A photograph of a tin box full of marijuana simply titled Green Box, speaks to the constantly changing status of the substance–once taboo or illicit, now a symbol of a growing industry in Northern California...

Collective Memories: Beijing Hotel
© » KADIST

Chen Shaoxiong

2007

After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...