Xiē: To bind, embed, shimmer, and brace

The new exhibition at daadgalerie by the collective Xiē presents an expansive installation, which also includes video works and drawings, as a spatial result of the ongoing group collaboration between artists Hao Jingban, Shen Xin, Yunyu Ayo Shih, and writer Qu Chang.

Xiē was formed in 2020, during Hao Jingban’s period of residence in Berlin as a Visual Arts fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. Via chat messages and online discussions, topics such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the escalating tensions in Taiwan have been addressed. This ongoing exchange has resulted in joint readings, images, drawings, and videos, presented to the public at daadgalerie for the first time. 

The collective takes its name from the Chinese character “Xiē,” which depicts a tree and a person cutting a wedge out from it. Similar to how a wedge is driven into a gap in order to (re-)establish a connection, stabilizing or opening something up in the process, discussion is intended to foster a productive environment for group collaboration in a period marked by global crises and social upheavals. 

The central theme of the group’s joint reflections has been the significance of the home in times of enforced isolation.

In the brochure accompanying the exhibition one of the voices of Xiē’s collective dialogue says: “During the pandemic, the greatest change I’ve experienced is the recognition of thoughts and feelings from within as my exposure to information and knowledge slowed down. Without the illusion of rapid circulation, values had to be tested and put to work locally, domestically.  All our old concepts and values are examined in spaces of isolation reinforced by quarantine. Like waiting for the revelation of the shallows when the river recedes, or the growth of seedlings come May, I’m also waiting for my own emergence and sedimentation. Waiting for something that can be felt, something that can be carried on.” 


Hao Jingban works with film and video to investigate the historical distance between the present viewer and a certain era in the past. In her research-based practice, the artist conducts historical investigation, archival research, field study, personal interviews, and live performances. Hao’s work was shown at Matadero Madrid, OCAT Xi’an, among others. 

Qu Chang is a Hong Kong and Shenzhen-based curator and writer contributing to journals such as Artforum, Ocula, and Yishu. Having  worked as curator at Para Site, herrecent curatorial projects include Sea Breeze (2019, Jogja Biennale, co-curated with Cosmin Costinas), Café do Brasil (2019, Para Site), Doreen Chan: Hard Cream (2019, HB Station), Crush (2018, Para Site).

Shen Xin practices empowering alternative histories, relations, and potentials between individuals and nation-states. Their interests lie in understanding culture on its own terms. Seeing it as an active commitment to the learning, teaching and engaging with relating to places as land, it opens up to inhabiting the multitudes of the selves through the lens of time. Their work was shown at Swiss Institute, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among others.

Yunyu Ayo Shih currently lives and works in Taipei. He frequently explores different appearances of memorial and memory while at the same time involving interactions between himself and state apparatus. Shih’s work was shown at Taipei Fine Art Museum, Para Site, Time Museum, Power Station Art Museum in Shanghai, Taipei Contemporary Art Center, 4-18 Space (Bogota), among others.

DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program
The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program is one of the most renowned residency programs for international artists and cultural practitioners in the fields of visual arts, film, literature, and music & sound. The residency enables the chosen fellows to focus on their creative thinking, actions, and research pursuits without being obliged to produce. Encounters with other artists and cultural producers stimulate transdisciplinary cooperation and initiate reciprocal learning processes.