Protocinema

✨Mulberry Bend press round up✨

“Together, these works flip the coin of art and its elsewhere. They pass in and out of elective presentation as art, and in moving over this threshold elucidate the needs, affordances, and values that direct each sphere.” — IMPULSE Magazine

Thank you IMPULSE Magazine Frieze Documented Gabriel Allred for your thoughtful features!

Swipe to read the press highlights... 👉

Join us for the final public program at Mulberry Bend with !

📅 Saturday, June 6 & Sunday, June 7
⏰ 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
📍127 Walker Street

For two durational performances marking the final phase of “照拂 reflect/brush”, Sidian Liu activates “cleaning tools” created from the collected hair of participants who self-identify as local caregivers and use these tools in acts of caregiving.

During the performances, audiences are invited to enter a designated cleaning zone where Liu enacts the tools through brushing, caressing, and grooming gestures learned from participants.

🔗 More details:
https://www.protocinema.org/exhibitions/mulberry-bend-public-programs

In “照拂 reflect/brush,” Sidian Liu meditates on invisibilized caregiving alongside its societal and familial expectations to sustain the conditions for everyday life. She invites those who reside in Chinatown and self-identify as caregivers to participate. The artist defines caregiving broadly to encompass the performance of reproductive activities across domestic, communal, and professional contexts, all devoted to caring for others.

In her temporary salon, she offers participants free haircuts and the option to have their oral histories recorded. Following the haircutting sessions, Liu creates cleaning tools from the collected hair and leads a series of public brooming performances alongside the playback of the participants’ stories.

Sidian Liu is an artist, translator, yarner, and nest builder based in New York City. Using ”housewife skills,“ she makes social relationships to facilitate trust and intimacy from a respectful distance, exploring pathways to further solidarity in our challenging times. Living in flux as a Chinese woman and an immigrant in the U.S., her works often take forms in images, performance, light-weight installations, and socially-engaged projects. 

Installation shots