Ada Xiaoyu Hao

Somatic Apparatus 

The selected performances and their documentation focus on themes of the post-human, becoming animal, morphological desire, metonymic body mutation/simulation/transgression, notions of self within Asian Diaspora, body as archive, voice reverberation, and coalition beyond traditional gender, like the constructed verbal and non-verbal cultural/social codes. 

"At times, in the images where the camera has zoomed in, the body appears androgynous. The body you make us aware of here is via its skin, its membrane – that acts as a surface, a screen – offering protection as well as a tactile texture to encounter. The skin here encloses the body, and also presents the body. It veils the body’s insides, the things that render a body unnatural when fallen outside – and also becomes what we know of the body via our immediate senses of sight, smell and touch. The body-skin is a space of possible encounters, intimacies and sensualities."

- Annie Jael Kwan, Curator and Researcher, 'Duties of Self-Care', In response of Ada Xiaoyu Hao's work, 'Mask of Sanity'.