Shared Wounds, Living Relations
by Chuxi Shui
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
This project, Shared Wounds, Living Relations, was developed as a written and conceptual exploration of how performance can make visible the entanglement between human bodies and the environment. Drawing from thinkers such as Édouard Glissant, Lilian Mengesha, and Ana Mendieta, the work considers how both feminized bodies and the land are shaped by extractive systems, and how these shared conditions of damage might be felt, rather than simply represented, through performance.
My creative process began with a question: how can performance make invisible or slow forms of harm perceptible? Through writing, I explored breath, slowness, and touch as ways of rethinking relation, not as repair or resolution, but as an ongoing, durational engagement with damage. The text moves between theoretical reflection and a performative score, proposing breathing as a shared, embodied practice that connects bodies to their surroundings.
This project also informed my installation work, Breathing with the Wound, where these ideas are translated into an interactive, sensory form.
CHUXI'S BIO:
Chuxi Shui is a multidisciplinary artist working across installation, performance, and interactive media. Her work often begins with materials, images, or interactions, and develops through an interest in how people experience and relate to them.
She works across both physical and digital forms, creating projects that invite participation and explore different ways of sensing, making, and responding.
She is currently studying Performance Studies at New York University, with a minor in Integrated Design and Media.