#heta source material

[fireandiceland]

@umahumahumah I think this is the illustration you’re looking for? More details under the readmore ^-^

Source: Arte Stella by Himaruya Hidekaz

[fireandspiceland]

Canada fondling- I mean checking Cuba’s moobs for a mark if he’s the one the feline parallel nations are looking for. This is just one of my many highlight from this very old and apparently very unpopular or forgotten arch of the early manga days.

[goldammerchen]

(ah, fuck it. won't be coherent tho)

i often wonder how many people got a military uniforms kink because of hetalia? (not, maid uniforms, etc)

i like boots and gloves and, whether i liked it or not, maybe is partially because of helltalia... but the whole ass actual uniforms? or the sexualised ones? might find some of them pretty but ugh fuck the institutions, not sexy--in that case i prefer them changed enough to remove the connection to the irl origin. suits can be better imo. or even better, leather.

seems hima (with his vaguely hidden author's kink lmao) is kind of doing his own modified version of parade dress uniforms so thats better i guess (I GUESS)

...buried somewhere in my blog i talk that prussia's nendo uniform is from japa/n-prus/sia treaty era, so late 19th century. proper for a country that doesn't exist anymore, and i makes me very glad that gil and lud uniforms used in merchandising nowadays aren't the first 2 ones anymore, you know which ones. i thought they were we.hr ones but turns out they were waf.fen which, even if the we.hr myth is a fucking lie (they also commited atrocities), it makes it worse.

anyway, just as i wish iron crosses weren't used in fanart (at least in modern era art, the hell are doing those there), i wish that nv.a uniforms (gd.r) were used with gil if people must despict second half of the xx century uniforms lol, it looks so fucking similar but it is not na.zi... i will blame hetalia for this bc fans are too young to get that type of fetichism in some other way that isn't something like generational trauma (thinking in my secret garden: women’s sexual fantasies for example)... tho not impossible, of course.

still, *why* hetaIia :sob:. source and fandom (mostly) moved away from that (unsensitive to start there ahhhh), pls don't in heta...

[homuracar]

personal complaining rant about haikyuu and hypermasc fanart--because!!! speaking exaggeratedly for fun, and because i don't think anyone's reading

i just saw very very veryvery cute sakuushi art, right after seeing some haikyuu fanart that i really do not like... thing i've realized is i think i hated a lot of the haikyuu fandom so much because, a lot of the art was very masculine LOL. it'll depend on the fandom side ofcourse... and it's not like everyone drew it like that. but i was always stupid and crazyparticular sometimes. hypermasc depictions of characters, in haikyuu fandom i reaaaally hated it. especially because my favorite was ushijima (>_>) it was over. i didn't know how to explain it back then because i was a kid and totally disconnected from that thought, i decided it was because i didn't like my fav being sexualized(complete lie lmao)

a lot of haikyuu fandom sees the boys more as love interests in like, an otome game? or something. or potential husbands. which is fair, people can do what they want... i don't care... well i do care because i hate the drawings and i hate the depictions. but this is my own problem mostly, i didn't end up aligning with most of fan's views on it. ushijima isn't my husband... (gnaws hand) i wouldn't intrude like that... he wouldn't see me like that even if i wanted him to be my wife..... and i would pale in comparison to his other suitors(is now just crazed). not only that i don't align with their shipping views either?! if i was bored by most of the main pairs the fandom decided on when i first got into haikyuu, by now i basically hate them. fuck bokuaka and fuck that one fanfic. (seethe) well actually the ship is fine, most ships are fine or would be fine if i didn't think a lot of the fanwork was atrocious about the characters lol. my art leans feminine, and most of my preferences does too. but i didn't Like the characters that fans decided was feminine like that. i didn't care for them, or i didn't even see them like that! maybe my view of what is fem/masc is a little too jumbled up, but i abide by it. fuck all of this. fuck you. and fuck ushioi. oiushi is fine. ushioi nearly made me dislike oikawa with it's sheer force. oikawa is fine actually he's funny. in fact ushijima and oikawa's relationship IS interesting... i just hate 90% of what i saw of it fanon-wise. sakuushi is precious to me, because gap moe is super. i never liked sakuatsu and i probably never will. i love atsumu but this is not where he should beee...(rolls around). it also made me despise mafia aus by instinct. im crazy but heta is kind of fresh air to me for this, so many cutesy art... so many fun art... and the source material goes with it too. if not outright cute then it's funny, which is cute itself! even if it's dark or weird it's still cute. and so much more ryona than i could ever dream of (Im So Happy). at least back then when i was more brain tied to haikyuu, there were the bunch of people who'd make more cute art. in english fandom, the cartoonish funny cuteness. i find easian fandoms get the characters down in a way i like much more most of the time tho lol. for some reason the jokes people pick up on are different? like you don't see obsessive fan shirabu in english fandom LOL. but seasian fandom does a lot of handsome ultramasc husbando haikyuu fanart(gnaws hand). that's not surprising... i know indonesians like manboobs... whatever idon't even care. i don't care. i don't.

i'm complaining so i might as well, but saddening to me when art of characters being feminine felt so limited. especially for the characters with more "masculine" bodytypes(fuck all of you). again my view of fem/masc is a little jumbled, or kind of weird so my words don't mean much here. but i never understood why characters were so limited by fans in it. if a ""masculine""(fuck you) character were to be given like, a dress, or feminine clothing, it'd be like, deliberately an outlier in some way. like for the "absurdity" of it... they'd never shut up about the absurdity too... i don't care if it's sexualization it's just really annoying to keep being like this guy is so masculine but he's wearing a dress!!! crazy right!!! look how annoyed he is scowling and jaw hard and muscles tense!!! don't you see how crazy masculine he is while in that dress!!!! i'll kill you all. characters flustered in dresses is cute. nobody understands. it's over. it's just strange to see, the only characters where anyone ever acknowledges their feminine traits are whoever people decide are twinks. the characters who isn't usually get focus on how dominant and masculine they are. No i think ushijima has feminine traits? fuck all of you. it's kind of my fault for preferring feminine things while falling in love with strong/big characters LOL. fml... not my fault the fandom's dearest chosen twinks are MID and not WIFE MATERIAL. i don't like twink atsumu miya actually but he's still a cute puppy. okay? fuck. can't we balance this out. can't a cute girlfriend who gets red in the face also work out and be professional athletes? can't tall fit girls faces get flushed confessing to you? do you hate me? why can't everyone be cute girls is it so wrong? look they're slice of life-ing isn't this so cute?!?! don't you agree that it's cute to see them eat meat buns in the snow and have puffs of breath show up?! i'll just yuribend them all. i guess

i say this but i also just never rly gravitate towards more petite or smaller characters. so. lol. and if they have a shy timid pathetic personality it makes me want to see them seme more... lol... the predicament. all the characters with aura is decided seme tch.... which makes sense... tch.. i guess... i'll accept that ame makes sense seme/uke(but i'd never ever let him or draw him seme don't get me wrong.) but i won't allow it for ushijima. im smiling at the sky. my girlfriends are so cu

but if you dig you can find fanart of them in super very cute artstyles! the core of haikyuu is volleyball fun after all. most of the time the characters behave very endearingly, rather than the super macho mafia bosses people are so insistent on. for the majority of it's runtime they're stupid teenage boys, and even after timeskip they're having good fun. they're happy and loving. i really can't stand a lot of the fanart. but if you find right you will find the best the cutest the sweetest. (my current heta twt used to be the acc i used scouring for cute haikyuu fanart and posting them LOL... i still follow some haikyuu accounts bcz of it)(korean sakuushi art!!! the absolute best!!!) ones that really understand haikyuu's cuteness. it's still a manga dear to my heart, even tho i'll avoid checking in the fandom 90% of the time.

[maibluemen]

🔥1, 11, &25

~ @fluffywhump :3

choose violence asks!

1) the character everyone gets wrong

all of them asdfcv tbh it's not completely fanon's fault because i think he's just really difficult to nail the right balance of character traits, but ivan. people either make him too edgy or too sweet.

11) number of fandom-related words you have filtered

lol i have a very long list of filtered words so i will not be going through and actually counting, but for hetalia i do have a few different ships filtered. maybe 5 or so, and there's another i'm always tempted to add but it's so popular that i feel like i'd miss out on a lot of heta stuff on my dash if i did. but then the overwhelming popularity is part of why i want to filter it in the first place so [shrugs]

25) common fandom complaint you're sick of hearing

not necessarily a complaint that people make, but i don't understand why people will fight each other over whether it's better and More Correct to be either 100% lighthearted and goofy or 100% dark and serious historical content. hetalia canon and fandom have always been a mix of both, and it's fine if one or the other isn't your cup of tea but like. we are, in fact, engaging with the same source material and fandom culture/subcultures within the fandom that have been around for well over a decade now.

[cookieshower]

psa i ship spaportspa in ALL dynamics (⁠/⁠^⁠-⁠^⁠(⁠^⁠ ⁠^⁠*⁠)⁠/

i mostly use spaport tag for convenience but they're switch.

they're That ship that's most versatile and equal...<3 if i post an untagged spaport then assume it's tagged. if i post solo toni or port then they're partners. if i draw stickman it's them!! if i post a Not spaport they're the top because 90% of the time they would only be bottom to e/o in spaport

also reminder

spain and port are only neighbours in canon. please read the source material :3

if they're brothers: they're not humans

if they're brothers and human au: they're not even real

in heta it's normal that neighbouring countries are related. hima shoves maIaysia and singapores ship in your face (/pos) when they're literally brothers sjjdsksj, 'rome's grandchildren', austria and prussia revealed to be related etc. go cancel hima i guess?  ⁠•́⁠ ͜⁠ʖ⁠ ⁠•̀⁠ ⁠༽⁠_⁠/⁠¯

after a meme oomf made... realised most hetalia ships are either 'colonizer apologist' or 'incest apologist' for the lack of better words (theres limits to depicting the former ofc but oot). if you don't see it look harder skssjdjs Thankfully they're fiction!!

idk what i'm writing lol thanks for reading

[beardofkamenev]

Pages from the Proffwydoliaeth y Wennol (Prophecy of the Swallow) pertaining to Henry VII (Wales, late 16th cent.) — National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 58

Peniarth 58 is a collection of Welsh language prose and verse prophecies (daroganau) compiled by a single scribe. The manuscript was likely compiled in the late 16th century, but incorporates a number of prophetic materials pertaining to the accession of Henry VII a century earlier. The most important of these is the medieval Proffwydoliaeth y Wennol (Prophecy of the Swallow), which anticipates Henry’s return from exile and the deposition of Richard III.

The original Proffwydoliaeth was likely written between Henry’s first attempt to take the throne in October 1483 and his success at Bosworth in August 1485. It incorporates symbols common to 15th century Welsh political prophecy: the swallow, a conventional Tudor cipher (first applied to Henry’s grandfather, Owen Tudor); and the raven, taken from the crest of the Welsh house of Dinefwr, the arms of Henry’s ally Rhys ap Thomas. As on the march to Bosworth, the prophecy describes the swallow (Henry) being aided by the raven (Rhys ap Thomas):

“And [the swallow] shall receive a warning in secret from the raven … and then the swallow flies over the sea, and [his] birds retreat, some to the height of the wild mountains, others to secret hiding places in the valley, only the smallest part of his birds go with him.”

A’r rybydd a gaiff yn ddirgel gan y deryn bran … ac yna ir heta y wenol dros vor ai hadar a ant ar engkil r(hai) i vchelder y mynyddoedd dyrys eraill i ddirgel llechvae yn y dyffrynt nit a gida ac ef nam y rhan leia(f) or adar.

The prophecy also features the mole or “mab ddall” (blind son): a prophetical figure representing the final king of the Saxons, after whose age British (Welsh) restoration is promised. Here, the mole can only be Richard III, described as carrying out “poisonous deeds”. The prophecy foretells the swallow’s return to Britain to battle the mole, presented as a board game (a common motif in Welsh literature):

“[The swallow] lands back in the island of Britain to avenge the old deeds. Then he begins of his game afresh and arranges his countrymen on the table and he throws the dice on the board and the old others he plucks out irreverently.”

Y tiria dracheffyn i ynys brydain i ddiail i hen weithyredo(e)dd. Yna i dechreu oi chwarev o newydd ac i gossot i wyr genedyl i hvn yn y dabyler ac i bwrw y dissie(u) am y klawr ac i tyn i hen eraill allan yn amharchvs.

The Proffwydoliaeth concludes with the swallow’s triumphant return and the restoration of the Britons. It is uncertain whether the Welsh understood the prophecy to have been fulfilled upon Henry’s accession in 1485, but the existence of Peniarth 58 and the labour required to compile it suggests the particular longevity of the Tudor legend in Wales.

Sources: National Library of Wales (Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru); Victoria Flood, ‘Henry Tudor and Lancastrian Prophecy in Wales’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium Vol. 34 (2014); Ibid, ‘Political Prophecy and the Trial of Rhys ap Gruffydd, 1530-31’, Studia Celtica Vol. 50, No. 1 (2016)

[1p2p-heta-suggestives]

Rules!

This may be a nsft/nswf blog but there are still rules so please read these before sending in as ask!

The sfw blog is: @1p2p-heta-imagines

1. I will not write about certain subjects, mainly specifically anything to do with noncon/dubcon and/or scat, please respect that

2. I will not write for characters that are under 18, they must 18 or older

3. Please specify 1p or 2p. I will not do 1p or 2p as a whole, please specify the character or the group of characters you want.

4. Please don’t send the same ask more than 2 or 3 times at once. Doing more so will get you blocked. If it hasn’t been answered, please wait a little before sending it in again.

5. I will not tolerate any homophobia, transphobia, enbyphobia, xenophobia, racism, islamophobia, etc. You’ll be blocked, just don’t be a dick.

6. Please put a trigger warning before you ask something if it has anything potentially triggering in it

7. MAPs and NOMAPs, do not interact with this blog. You are NOT welcome and you will NEVER be welcome.

Notes:

1. I’m 18 but please still don’t send send anything sexual towards me, personally, as it makes meuncomfortable (unless it’s marked as a joke)

2. I use He/Him or They/Them pronouns! I’m fine with either of them! I go by Roman!

3. I go through periods of being extremely sex repulsed so that’s likely why asks have not gotten answered in a while, not because I’m abandoning the blog as a whole

4. We are a system, some alters may answer asks on this blog instead of me. Please don’t treat them weirdly, and especially don’t treat fictives as if they’re just a character from their source material as they have feelings and it’s also just very weird

[fireandiceland]

LOOK AT THEM IDK WHAT THEYRE DRESSED UP FOR BUT THERES CAT EARS ON THE HATS 😭💖💖💕💕💖

(source amnibus on twitter)

[goldammerchen]

Anon, anon, anon. ANON, you're killing me sdfsd (context).

B-but yeah, The Producers isn't Hetamyu, and if this other post somehow helped in getting you further confused I apologize.

Otoh seems that at least the first heta musicals were like this, but from what I have heard they went in a different direction later? (kitawiki).

Unlike other adaptations of the series, the musical diverge from the source material on certain key world-building plot points - most notably the nation characters representing the political motivations of the countries at the time, while in the manga the nation characters represented the country as a whole while their leaders ("bosses") dictated political aims.

I don't know anything about Hetamyu, tbh I get second-hand embarrassment every time I see clips 😔

[ellawritesficssometimes]

Q & A

hi! I am brand new to the fandom (weird for 2018, I know haha) but I would like to start off by saying thank you for what you do! Anyways, my question was, so I see a lot of fan art for different ships and whatnot. I have only watched the anime not read the comic yet (but I plan to!) and I was wondering if there are actually any ships that are/were canon and if there's not any, what are the most popular fanon ones? I am trying to be wary of ship wars haha.

Not weird at all. People still join all the time! No need to thank me, but you’re welcome :D

No ships are canon, other than Chibitalia x Holy Rome. Even Aushun, who were married, are not outright confirmed to have romantic feelings for each other. There are a lot of hints, though. If you’d like to explore ships on this blog, plug in the tag “Shipping Series.”

Some pairings where there are canon hints of romance are FrUk, AusHun, SpaAus, SpaIta and Spamano. I use comic material and provide sources for you to look at, so I’m not just pulling it out of nowhere lol.

kind of new to the fandom haha but I have heard it has quite a few 'gay undertones', but I was wondering there is actually any characters confirmed to be LGBTQ+?

Oh! Another new member! Welcome!

Hetalia is very gay.

Here are some posts to corroborate that: [x] [x] [x] [x]. 

I know you've already lengthy talked about it, but could you please make some clarifications about 'nyotalia'? I still see many people in the fandom being confused about the concept(i.e. misunderstanding them as genderbents, considering heta/nyo verses of the original 'couples', for example spanyo!mano being spamano het verse). Sorry to bother

You’re not bothering me. It’s just, there’s nothing more to really talk about. Like you’ve said, I’ve already covered those misconceptions. It would be redundant to make another post.

However, I would be more than happy to link the post again for you [x].

So what is your opinion on the *whispers* movie ??

*googles synonym for clusterfuck*

I mean the re-used material thing is nothing new to Hetalia. Himaruya is notorious for re-using, re-drawing, and re-printing old material.

Do think that Estonia wants to join the Nordics because they give a sense of community that he just doesn't get with the Baltics. I mean the Nordics are this really close bunch and the Baltics are just there.

No. It’s just a reference to how Estonia is being increasingly grouped with the Nordics in the present political sphere. There’s an increasing sentiment that looks at the similarities between Finnish and Estonian language and culture.

Sources: Hetarchive, Volume 6, the Meeting of the Nordics & Volume 6, The Nordic Five.

[experimentaltranslation]

1.3 Mess(e)

Materials. 

• A voice or voices. 

• Certain variations require a giving text, others do not. The giving text may be a single word or phrase. 

• A performance space or a recording interface that allows for layering multiple voice tracks.

Players.

• This procedure seeks choral polyphony, it is thus ideal to carry it out in a group setting, although one voice can be used and multiplied to create a similar effect. 

Steps. 

• Player 1 begins with a word or a short phrase. Repeat it in a rhythmic or sung fashion, creating a beat or grounding pedal tone (think ABBA’s Take a chance take a chance take a take a cha-chance).

• Player 2 translates or translucinates this word or short phrase and repeats it likewise in a rhythmic or sung fashion, layering onto player 1’s segment.

• Player 3 translates player 2 and so on a so forth until all the players have layered their voice.

• When the mess(e) returns to player 1, player 1 may stop or continue translating on from the final player, and then player 2 and so on, indefinitely. 

• The sound x x x can be repeated by Player 1 to stop the mess(e). 

Variations & examples.

The mess(e) is a form that has followed me for many years. And so I will give the variations and examples in the form of a timeline that should tell a kind of story, as well as present several ways in which the form of the mess(e) can be used as a creative writing, translation or reading exercise. 

1. 2010: Champs Requis/Required Fields

In this version of the mess(e) form avant la lettre, I used my visa application form as a giving text. In this variation, a word or a phrase is not translated and repeated, but rather, segments from the given text are broken up, taken a part, and translated, chasing each other in a round to give a funhouse stereoscopic choral of the original text. The lines chase each other between English and French across five voices. No recording exists. 

2. 2012: Festival Masnaâ, mess(e) lead by members of the “Laboratoire du contemporain”: https://recitsdansent-blog.tumblr.com/post/49844124669/transcript-de-messe-performance.

This making of a mess(e) was the first to be called by its name, the brainchild of Heta Rundgren. Here, four segments in Arabic, French, Finnish and Spanish were repeated rhythmically by four large groups of people spaced out across a large hall. Four single voices sang over the group chants to translate in gradual modulations.

3. 2014: Les quarante vies du Centre d’Etudes Féminines à Paris 8, Vincennes Saint-Denis.

For this event, the source text used was Hélène Cixous’s Le Rire de la Meduse, and embodied an experiment with the mess(e) as a form of performative reading, where phrases or words from the text (sexte, oiseau, ille) were materialized and spoken or sung in their original or in translation. This can be adapted for a classroom or workshop setting as a way of opening onto a dense text, by asking participants to speak, whisper, shout or sing (if they are brave) parts of the text that interest or trouble them. 

4. 2014: La Fhêta.

A mess(e) is also a wonderful collective birthday gift on a budget. In 2014 for Heta’s birthday a mess(e) was performed in a gallery in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, where bits of things Heta says, her particular expressions and inflections, sound bites or names of intellectual notions she invented were repeated in the prosodic fashion of the mess(e). 

5. 2015: Outransmess(e): https://remue.net/outransmess-e-un-poeme-sonore-et-choral

The Outransmess(e) is the version that comes closest to the one described in the steps above. It was recording during a 2015 Outranspo residency at the Chateau Les Hommeaux in the Loire. The starting segment was given by yours truly “on/off” and translated in mess(e) fashion progressively by the Outranspians present. The recording and production were done myself and Santiago Artozqui. The recording was recently put on display and played on loop during the Experiential Translation exhibition in Ledbury, English, curated by Ricarda Vidal and Madeleine Campbell. 

6. 2016: “Mass Transit”, a collection of sentences in an invented extraterrestrial language: https://lilyrobertfoley.bandcamp.com/album/mass-transit

These recordings represent the responses by a fictional extraterrestrial community to questions asked by a researcher in an unpublished novel, Glyphmachine. They are an attempt to create a language that would be purely performative, a play on the material of signifiers with no signified. As such, they fall into the category of the Outranspian constraint “neotranslation”:

Neotranslation (span: neotraducción; fr: néotraduction): a translation made towards a made up language, created specifically in order to make that translation.

This language is constructed by extracting rhythmic or melodic segments from the original sentence, without taking the original word unit separations into account. The different segments are sung/chanted in repetition and layered in the style of a mess(e). The results represent the purely musical and material responses of the extraterrestrials to the questions. 

7. 2017: “Entrelangue” performance by myself and Lena at the conference Poetry in Expanded Translation II on Intersemiotic Translation, organized by Jennifer K Dick.

My goal in this mess(e) was the multilingual renaming of different objects used during a drag performance by Lena (Christophe Beyler). As Lena presented different items I chanted new names for each (ex: “globe de bloodleather” “heedle harm” “popula miniliths” “cacamom” “tabulolololo” “patronade” “nom de pale” etc.), while separating the audience into smaller groups. I tied red yarn around each smaller group as I taught them the chant to rename the objects, and encouraged them to continue chanting as I moved onto the next group. In the end I cut each yarn and let them free flow. Some people kept chanting and many others did not. 

8. The present: Workshops and classrooms.

The form of the mess(e) reappears regularly in workshops and classes that I lead in a freeform way that is also inspired by a 2014 Red Rover reading series event in Chicago that was organized by Jennifer Karmin and Laura Goldstein, following a form they called the “Rumble”. The idea of a Rumble is an anarchic reading where there is no prearranged order or closed list of readers. Any participant is invited to speak a text within a time limit, following organically, intuitively, sometimes awkwardly, one speaker after another. It creates a collective space between apprehension and trust where the group can sort out a rhythm and adjust for the different voices. When I use this form as a workshop or classroom mess(e), I also invite participants to repeat segments they have written, translated or found in giving texts in the rhythmic/melodic style of the mess(e), or to answer and repeat segments spoken by others. 

[n-i-cooper]

Misaki Kawai, Moja Moja Life (2020)

Kawai is known for her ‘eternally youthful’ exhibitions

Creates art implementing the philosophy heta-uma (translates to: unskilful, but skilful) originating in 1980s Japan

Explores scale and texture in an eccentric fashion

Moja Moja - Hairy

Colour and material reminded me of my experiments with the pink shoelaces

Source:

Emma Do, “just for laughs,” frankie, March/April, 2021, 93.

[micaramel]

Artist: Su-Mei Tse

Venue: Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau

Exhibition Title: Nested

Date: May 5 – August 12, 2018

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, video, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Video:

Su-Mei Tse, documentation of Nested at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, 2018, Video by Heta Multanen

  Images and video courtesy of Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aurau

Press Release:

The Aargauer Kunsthaus devotes a solo exhibition to the wide-ranging work of the Luxembourg artist Su-Mei Tse whose object art, photographic works, and videos are suffused with reflections on time, existence, memory, rhythm, and language. The exhibition features new works the artist created after sojourns in Italy and Japan.

Media such as photography, sculpture, and installation are central to Su-Mei Tse’s artistic practice. In them she articulates transitions between disparate realms—sound and image, music and space, nature and culture, mental space and sensory experience. Music, sounds, and silence enter into a unique interplay in the exhibition spaces and time seems to pass in a changed rhythm in them.

Su-Mei Tse has had a previous appearance at the Aargauer Kunsthaus when she showed a poetic neon piece in the 2013 group exhibition Rhythm in it. Nested, her first institutional solo exhibition in Switzerland, presents the fruits of her artistic practice. After sojourns in countries such as Italy and Japan she has created new works which, realised especially for this occasion, form the gravitational centre of the show. In the exhibition spaces music, sounds, and silence enter into a unique interplay, and time in them seems to pass in a changed rhythm.

In Nested, Su-Mei Tse develops a distinct narrative for the Aargauer Kunsthaus, combining the new works and site-specific installations with selected older works. New artistic paths of exploration become apparent: inquiries into the contemplative, into our relationship to the worlds of plants and minerals, or into the possibility of a sensitive relation to the past. With all those interwoven themes, the exhibition is laid out in the manner of a notebook, that is, a form in which quotidian visual or acoustic impressions or memories are gathered and then mixed in a subjective, intuitive way to form a network of echoing references and correspondences.

A case in point is the 2017 Nested series, which provides the title for the exhibition. It consists of a group of found limestone sculptures into whose niches variously coloured balls of stone are “embedded”. To the artist the sculptures symbolise the precarious balance between holding and being held. In a playful and poetic way, the colourful balls are equally reminiscent of marbles and of the planets of a cosmic system. Other works in the exhibition similarly attest to Su-Mei Tse’s interest in the mineral world and its primordial beauty. The elaborate installation Stone Collection (2017) draws its inspiration from the Chinese tradition of the “scholars’ rocks”. For each of the carefully selected rocks from different regions the artist has created a unique pedestal corresponding to the nature of the rock. Macro and microcosm become one in them, as landscapes, mountains, caves, clouds, or waves are hinted at in their surfaces. These works invite contemplative viewing.

In the exhibition we encounter an uprooted tree cast in bronze (Trees and Roots, 2011), a fresh pomegranate (A Whole Universe [Pomegranate], 2017), or a landscape reflected in a lake (Reflection, 2017). In terms of subject matter, these sculptures and photographs revolve around the world of plants, but at the core of them are questions about “being in the world” and human existence. The individual and its uniqueness are similarly inscribed into the installation Das Ich in jeder Kartoffel [The Self in Each Potato] (2006–11). Each of the fifteen ceramic potatoes has its very own shape, and the tender sprouts point to the unbridled power of life that resides in every being. Su-Mei Tse manages to articulate such sweeping philosophical reflections from a point of view firmly anchored in everyday life and with a subtle, humorous wink. She seeks out the poetry of the everyday and renders it visible in her work.

Su-Mei Tse wants to create a language that unites rather than separates, a language that is expressive of not just one but multiple cultures and thus epitomises the boundless and the dynamic. The sculpture Many Spoken Words (2009/2018) is, in its surprising combination of materials used, the source for myriad associations. Blank ink gushes, flows, and drips from a pseudo- baroque garden fountain and symbolises “the process of language, from the original idea to the written word” (Su-Mei Tse). With her installation the artist pays homage to literature, alluding to the potential of words and the ever-renewing flow of creativity.

Some of the works presented in the exhibition Nested revolve around a critical reflection on the past and on historical and cultural references. Created during a fellowship at the Villa Medici in Rome, the 2015 video Pays de Neige shows the artist performing a ritual of erasure. In the light of a bleak winter sun the artist smooths the gravel path in front of the historically significant villa with a rake she pulls behind her. In doing so, she symbolically wipes away the traces of her predecessors and “prepares the canvas”, in order to create “breathing space” for her own creativity and recover her own voice. The spirit of Zen pervading this video is hard to miss, but the artist deliberately avoids any identification with a typical geographic location. Due to her Eurasian background she carries two cultures within herself, which she constantly defamiliarizes in order to uncouple them from the stereotypes they are usually associated.

It is hardly surprising that music plays a key role in the work of the trained cellist Su-Mei Tse, though it is less simply a subject for her and more an evocative force which she uses as a magnifying glass through which she sees, and is able to comprehend, the world. Music is central to a number of works such as the 2006 video Mistelpartition. At the same time the absence of sounds, silence, is also of great importance in her work. In White Noise (2009) a vinyl record with small white balls set into its grooves is turning continually on a turntable. “White Noise” refers to an acoustic phenomenon where all audible frequencies are mixed to the point where they neutralise one another and give rise to a kind of “acoustic silence”. To Su-Mei Tse, the work represents a visual translation of rustling, the moment just before music begins, as if it were about “giving volume to silence”, and in this it allows the viewer a moment to pause.

The exhibition Nested is the result of a collaboration with the Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, where it is curated by Christophe Gallois and shown from 7 October 2017 until 8 April 2018. For each venue and exhibition situation the artist develops a distinct concept with a selection of key works and a number of new pieces and installations created for the exhibitions serving as the common thread. After the presentation in Aarau the exhibition will be shown in adapted form at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai (October 2018 – February 2019) and at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (April – July 2019).

  Biography

Su-Mei Tse (b. 1973, Luxembourg) initially trained as a cellist in Luxembourg and Paris and then went on to study printmaking and textile art as well as sculpture at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués and the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 2003 she received the Golden Lion award for best national presentation at the 50th Venice Biennale, which helped her achieve her international breakthrough. Since then Su-Mei Tse has participated in numerous exhibitions at renowned museums throughout the world. She lives and works in Berlin und Luxembourg.

  Special Events

Pianostreet MELODYAARAU Saturday, 19 May 2018

1 pm Ludovic Van Hellemont

The pianist Ludovic Van Hellemont performs the work Palais de Mari (1986) by Morton Feldman.

3 pm Marina Vasilyeva

Marina Vasilyeva performs Johannes Brahm’s four-movement Piano Sonata No. 1 in C major Op. 1.

The concerts will take place in cooperation with Musikfestival MELODYAARAU. Duration: c. 30 minutes each; admission free, donations are welcome. For more information please visit http://bit.ly/2NHQzm5

Book Presentation and Artist’s Talk (in English) Sunday, 10 June 2018, 5 pm Su-Mei Tse in conversation with the Co-Curators Katrin Weilenmann, Aargauer Kunsthaus, and Christophe Gallois, Mudam Luxembourg. Followed by a Apéro riche. Admission free

Many thanks to: Galerie Tschudi, Zuoz; Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong; Gallery Nosbaum Reding, Luxembourg

Meditative Walk through the Exhibition Friday, 29 June 2018, 5 pm and Wednesday 8 August 2018, 5 pm Preceded by a brief introduction by curator Katrin Weilenmann, the meditative tour of the exhibition with the Zen teacher Sensei Sara Kokyo Wildi offers a contemplative approach to the exhibition.

No prior knowledge required. The number of participants is limited. Please register by email to anlaesse.kunsthaus@ag.ch CHF 20.– / CHF 15.– reduced and for Members of AA

Link: Su-Mei Tse at Aargauer Kunsthaus

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from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/2OcxGbW

[fireandiceland]

Wait I didn't know there was more :O he's so pretty 😭💕

Source: Hima's twitter

[fireandiceland]

WEREWOLF GERMANY AND PRUSSIA ??

Source: Hima's twitter