exploring notions of origins as returns in evocative and com- plex ways. Ecologies are not represented in simple circles, but are broken and extended out into the world. As much as energy is held and transformed in the piece, it is also clearly dissipated and dispersed outward. In sum, Yuan invites the viewer to experience the cyclical, connective, and expansive nature of origins without centers. Jaimey Hamilton Faris and Shulang Zou Yuan 原 , 2014 (Installation, 2014 view, detail) Yuan Beili Liu Likewise, the ritual charring of the edge of each piece of ­bamboo echoes multiple energy cycles of birth and destruc- March 9 – April 11, 2014 tion. The blackened edges are after-images or vestiges of Ha- waii’s own origin, in Chinese terms, yuan / 原—the volcano. University of Hawai‘i Art Gallery The heat and fire are crucial elements that define the iden- tity of Hawai‘i as an ever-growing archipelago. Fire creates the land, fuel and soil, which in turn, sustain the bamboo. At the same time, fire is also a major destructive force. The yuan / 原 (origin) to which the title of the installation refers, is also yuan / 圆 or a cyclical ecological system. (Installation, 2014 view) Yuan Yuan is, in essence, a site-responsive piece, its elements linked to the islands of Hawai‘i. Yet its meaning is not cir- Beili Liu’s work has been featured internationally in numerous cumscribed by its location. The concept of energy trans- distinguished venues including the Hå Gamle Prestegard, Norwegian formation within eco-systems and the exploration of origins National Art and Culture Center; Galerie An Der Pinakothek Der are recurrent themes in Liu’s philosophy and artistic prac- Moderne, Munich, Germany; Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center, Shanghai; tice. Yuan ­revisits a number of Liu’s earlier pieces, including Hua Gallery, London, UK; Nordisk Kunst Plattform, Brusand, Norway; Origin, 2008, a circle made from hundreds of rolls of spirit the Chinese Culture Foundation, San Francisco; and Buffalo Arts Studio. money, half-burned and then mounted on a wall. This piece For more information, visit www.beililiu.com more directly referenced opposing forces of this world and the afterworld connected by the offering of spirit money. The Special thanks are extended to the students, faculty, staff, and charred edges of bamboo in Yuan correspond to the burned community members who contributed their time and effort to make this rolls in Origin. installation possible.

SPONSORS While the development of Yuan arose in response to her past University of Hawai‘i at Ma¯noa’s Department of Art and Art History, work, Liu has been especially attentive to constructing a Intersections Visiting Artist & Scholar Program, and College of Arts piece that departs from typical representations of the more and Humanities; the Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts hermetic binary constructions of her earlier work. Yuan avoids through appropriations from the Legislature of the State of Hawai‘i and the obvious yin/yang elements in Origin as well as the more the National Endowment for the Arts; UHM Diversity and Equity Initiative; explicit oppositional tensions evident in The Mending Project and UHM Student Activity and Program Fee Board; and supported by and Stalemate. Instead, there seems to be more ­emphasis on the Waikiki Parc Hotel – Hospitality Sponsor for the Arts at UH Ma¯noa. BEILI LIU IS KNOWN FOR HER REFINED, SIMPLE, AND these blades, sewing together swatches of white fabric with not a solid one; pathways originate from one edge toward visually striking post-minimalist interpretations of materials black thread. This installation dealt poetically with the rising the other, generating an energy flow through and beyond the such as sumi ink, salt, silk thread, vellum, rice paper, plants, visibility of China’s female factory labor, as well as specifi- circle. Each entry point breaks the consistency of the circular and Chinese spirit money. Originally from Jilin, China, and cally considering Yoko Ono’s 1964 performance Cut Piece. form and creates an opening, a vital force, within the field. now an associate professor at the University of Texas, Austin, The scissors acted as a visible reminder of the constant state Viewers are welcome to step inside, be embraced by it, and she has worked for over a decade with these elements to of potential threat, while her labor of mending became an see it expand infinitely. express the subtle dynamics of energy transformation and ­allegorical performance of conflict resolution as a perpetual tension through organic repetition. activity. At a menacing scale, Stalemate, 2012, also obliquely The form of the field is echoed in the many small, slightly referenced the sewing materials of needle and thread. The in- imperfect, circular forms of the bamboo rings that compose Liu began her college study at Shenzhen University in Chi- stallation was composed of two large poles made from maple it. The varieties of bamboo—from a soft white, to darker nese literature and then later at the University of Tennessee, wood and coated with graphite, sharpened on the ends and shades of green—emerge from the gallery floor like new Knoxville, she earned a degree in graphic design. During her pointed toward each other like weapons. Held in tension by a growth, suggesting the richness and potential energy of the undergraduate study, she learned about Xu Bing’s Book from web of strings, the piece reflected the violence often under- earth. Hard on the outside, yet inherently flexible, bamboo is the Sky, 1987–91. Buoyed by the simplicity of means used by scoring cultural belonging and interpersonal negotiation. a major component in the Chinese moral tradition. Among its Xu to achieve such an impactful statement, Liu set upon a many symbolic resonances, it stands for the most desired path of exploring the potential of material energy in both her When Liu was invited by the Intersections Visiting Artist & and respected Confucian virtues: honor, integrity, modesty 2-D works and installation projects. This eventually led her to Scholar Program to conceptualize an installation for the Art and purity. The void inside of this extraordinary plant is the pursue an MFA at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Ever Gallery at the University of Hawai‘i at Ma¯noa, she decided exact quality that enables its yielding strength and its ability since, her work has drawn abundantly on Chinese cultural that she wanted to move away from the menacing work she to transport, support and contain. references in ways that point to the unsettling nature of global had been making and focus on creating a strong, but har- diasporic conditions. monizing energy in the gallery space. Responding to the evidence of life-force everywhere within this island chain, from the dense vegetation, to the vast open sea, to the new land still being created by volcanic activity, she conceived of Yuan / 原. The resulting installation, with befitting homage to post-minimalist sculptor Eva Hesse’s fiberglass and polyester resin series, Repetition Nineteen, 1968, offers visitors a quiet space to reflect upon the real-time negotiations of a diverse world and to reconsider such categorical constructs of void and substance, inside and outside, and origin and end.

, 2011 (Installation, 2011 view) Upon entering the gallery, viewers are met by an expansive circular field composed of thousands of bamboo rings that , 2003 (detail) , 2003 (detail) range from one to five inches in height, each with its edge Current charred by fire and its void filled with salt. Yuan / 原, in Chi- Current nese, signifies “origin,” “beginning” and “cause.” It also stands

The Mending Project for “field.”Yuan / 圆, another character with the same pronun- The salt represents the transformative powers of the sea, ciation means “round” and “circular.” In relation to the square as well as the energy of the participants who constructed Drawing upon the gendered and cross-cultured histories (fang / 方 in Chinese) of the gallery, the piece corresponds Yuan. The white crystals fill the void of each stalk of bamboo, embodied in the materials she uses (as well as a rich global to the cosmologic structure of fang yuan / 方圆. Ancient ­transferring the ocean body to the earthly body. Liu has used feminist legacy that includes Louise Bourgeois, Yoko Ono, Chinese texts describe heaven as round and earth as square salt in a number of her earlier pieces to express that transfor- Eva Hesse, Mona Hatoum, Ann Hamilton, Kimsooja, as / 天圆地方. In fang yuan, humans are brought into alignment mation of energy. In Current and Solid State, both from 2003, well as Liu’s Chinese contemporaries, Lin Tianmiao and Yin with these forces. In this particular piece, the inner circle of as well as GO, 2006, she highlighted salt’s ability to move and ­Xiuzhen), Liu has recently constructed some of her most pow- Yuan within the square of the gallery is again circumscribed grow from liquid to crystal state. In Yuan, salt does not liter- erful statements. For The Mending Project, 2011, organized by the living bamboo that can be see through the gallery win- ally transform; rather its importance is related to the way it is by Women and Their Work Gallery in Austin, Texas, she hung dows in a virtually 360 degree view. Fang yuan creates an used as a ritual agent, carefully poured into each tiny void of 1,500 Chinese-made scissors from the ceiling with blades interlocking and expansive space in which the energy of the bamboo by the many people who helped compose Yuan. The pointed downward to create a threatening, but suspended center refers and responds to the energy that surrounds and attention and focus of so much collective labor is held by the force. For the duration of the installation, she sat underneath continues beyond. Moreover, the circular field of bamboo is salt, which is itself cradled by the bamboo.