The exhibition Neo China Pulse ➤ Experience the New Generation of Art! is currently underway at the Karuizawa New Art Museum. Dai Ying, who held a solo exhibition at the Whitestone Ginza New Gallery this past March, is one of the featured artists. Here, we report on the live performance she gave during her visit to Japan on August 8, along with an explanation of her work.

An Intense Performance Born from the Artist in the Flesh

Dai Ying ringing a bell

On August 8, the exhibition hall of the Karuizawa New Art Museum was suddenly filled with a tense atmosphere. The audience held its breath the moment the artist, Dai Ying, appeared—draped in simple white cloth, her face and skin smeared with a vivid red reminiscent of blood and fire.

Dai Ying entered the large-scale installation “Temple 2”. After a short while, she crawled out and began to slowly circle the work, ringing a bell she held in her hand. Then, as if her emotions were exploding, she raised both hands and began to dance fiercely. A sudden, violent sob, and then a scream, shattered the silence. This cry of the soul was powerful enough to reverberate all the way to the museum's first floor. For 20 minutes, the gathered audience watched, captivated by the raw and sometimes painfully realistic expression.

Temple 2: "The Interior of Life" Created from 20,000 Sheets of Chinese Rice Paper

Dai Ying and Temple 2

“Temple 2”, the stage for the performance, is an immersive installation work created using traditional Chinese rice paper. Over 20,000 sheets of hand-dyed rice paper are layered and combined with multiple materials such as cloth, cotton, and stainless steel, forming a massive, cave-like space. The sight of countless rectangular sheets of Xuan paper overlapping in layers is truly reminiscent of the organic tissue of a living organism representing a womb.

Chinese rice paper is a material that has long been used in the world of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy. Dai Ying has taken this material, detached it from its traditional context, and sublimated it into a contemporary installation that questions the body and life.

Beyond "Understanding" to "Feeling"

Dai Ying in performance

This performance was presented as the latest evolution of her video work “Red” (2025), which is also on display. “Red” is a recording of the first time she performed the piece in Hong Kong.

The live performance is not created for the audience to "understand" a story. Its purpose is for each member of the audience to "feel" their "first relationship with the world" through Dai Ying's own body. During those 20 minutes of dancing, screaming, and sobbing, the audience had no time to seek explanation; they were simply exposed to the raw expression of the body before them.

This work, which portrays the female body as the site of birth and presents blood, pain, and rebirth as an origin common to all life, is not the story of any single person but a question posed to life itself. For those 20 minutes, it transformed the Karuizawa exhibition hall into a space for a single, fundamental question.

Neo China Pulse