Clover Huize Zou

Capstone Project: 拾起 / 放下 (Pick Up / Put Down)

This project combines performance video with an artist’s manifesto, exploring the materialization of memory primarily through the body’s movement between objects and space. The work unfolds around three circular areas—representing childhood, the present, and the future—each composed of personal items that serve both as sensory triggers and as tangible vessels for life experiences.

The performer moves between these circles, rearranging objects through repetitive picking up and placing down, or discarding them. Each object elicits a different physical response; as objects are moved, disturbed, or removed, the circles gradually shift, revealing the instability of memory and its constantly reconstructed nature.

Furthermore, this is an interactive project. The performer invites her friends to the venue, allowing them to alter the objects or provide her with new ones, transforming the work into a shared process. Through repetition, interaction, and spatial transformation, the performance explores how identity is shaped by memory, forgetting, and residual traces.

Bio

Clover Zou is a New York–based artist and senior at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Working between performance, curation, and media, her practice explores the body as a site of memory, ritual, and transformation. Trained as a dancer and shaped by both Eastern and Western artistic contexts, she is interested in how movement, breath, and space can articulate what remains unspoken.

Q&A with Clover

What inspired your project?
This project draws inspiration from my longstanding interest in the question of “how the body carries memory beyond language.” In the field of performance studies, I have always been fascinated by how the body can serve as a substitute for language—how gestures, repetitive movements, and the relationship between the body and space can carry stories and traces that are elusive or difficult to express in words. At the same time, I have been reflecting on the instability of memory: how easily it fades, transforms, or is unexpectedly rekindled by sensory triggers such as sounds, textures, or smells.

While the body leaves imprints in space, memory itself is often intangible and elusive. This project explores this tension by using objects as triggers for movement, allowing memories to emerge, shatter, and reassemble in real time.

Preview: What happens when memory becomes something that can be picked up, discarded, and retrieved? What remains when structure no longer holds?

What does Performance Studies mean to you?
For me, performance studies is a way of seeking meaning through the body’s interaction with the world. It extends the scope of performance beyond the stage. Everyday movements and social behaviors are all viewed as forms of performance. What draws me most to this field is its emphasis on “embodiment”—that is, how the body carries memories, emotions, and history, which language often cannot fully express. It’s like a seasoned storyteller teaching you how to tell a good story, and I am the one who ultimately writes that story to completion.