Dakota Guo (b. 1994, Taiyuan) is a Rotterdam-based Chinese artist. Reiterating cultural experiences of proto- or quasi-religious narratives, her practice-as-research is described as "pseudo-theory making" through performances, videos, installations, texts, and soundscapes. In her recent projects, she seeks ominous revelations of a "corpse-ghost" continuum, investigating the (cosmo-)necrological infrastructure of Han Chinese society, specifically the construction of its netherworld as a tangible reality. This speculative approach renders her peculiar obsession with ghostly matters and their materialization a post-secular revision of "haunting."
Soothsaying - 2024, single channel 4k video, sound, color, 5'40'' - A semi-fictional film based on my fieldwork in Quanzhou, a city that served as medieval China’s cosmopolitan port for foreign traders and was renowned for its polytheistic folk religion. While navigating the city’s intricate network of numerous community temples and domestic shrines, inhabited by thousands of gods, ghosts, and their pious mortal hosts, I encountered an elderly soothsayer whose “tool kit” consisted of a deck of cards and two birds in a cage that picked cards with their mouths.
On June 17th, in Amsterdam, the shooting of an allegedly suspended film “Chu Renmei & Hye-Joo” takes place in the absent presence of a quote-unquote camera - 2023, performance, installation, video, sound, 20'00'' - As a part of the duo project "Chu Renmei & Hye-Joo," a collaboration between Miyoung Chang and Dakota Guo, the performance was presented as a part of If I Can't Dance I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution's program "Open Rehearsal #2".
( ) is ominous of ( ) - 2022, single channel 4k video, sound, color, 7'33" - Referring to “Meng Po's soup” and shot in Rotterdam, “( ) is ominous of ( )” is a speculative fiction exploring the realm of yin through a mundane yet misplaced set-up in the realm of yang. In Chinese folk religion, after death, one would walk past the Bridge of Nai He and consume a soup of oblivion offered by Meng Po. The soup erases the memory of the previous life, preparing the soul for reincarnation. Using the feet of a duck submerged in water to allegorically refer to the suspended state of a ghost after being detached from its material counterpart, the work addresses inquiries into the realm of yin, where subjectivity remains unresolved.
I Once Had A Duck Soup Cooked With Ginger And Wine, And Lapsed Into A Comatose Suspense - 2022, performance, 20 minutes, with Christina Emmel, Miel Ferráez, Miyoung Chang, and Iga Swiesciak at Centrale Fies, Dro - The performance and video installation “I once had a duck soup cooked with ginger and wine, and lapsed into a comatose suspense ” recalibrates hauntology by performatively evoking the material entrails of ghosts. Five performers embody pictographic Chinese characters with “ghost” radicals. Their queuing at Meng Po's counter is choreographed according to the artist's etymological reading of the characters. The work asks: If ghosts are bound to their material counterparts, who are the subjects of the realm of yin, ie, the realm of the (un)dead?
Meng Po’s Bowl #3 - 2022, cotton, linen, threads, stains of soup, size variable
Tomb Orientation #1 - 2022, embroidery and arcylic on textiles, binder clips, masking tape, insulating tape, 66 x 5 x 50 cm
I snuggle into the tomb bed from my wedding chamber my hair is the quilt the spirit-guiding streamer - 2022, performance installation, embroidery on textiles, infrared camera, laptop, spoken words, sound, dimensions variable - Installation View and Opening Performance at "How Will You Ascertain Time?" (2022) curated by Hajra Haider Karrar and Sagal Farah, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin - A couplet of words is embroidered on the hanging “spirit-guiding streamer” reminiscent of a typical Chinese funeral decor, which contrasts the red veil that typically covers the head of a Chinese bride. Referring to the ghost marriage tradition that is still practiced in rural China, the performance installation delineates an underground space of a tomb, in which the performer meets the corpse-bride through a wedding make-up ritual that cannot be captured by the medium of the infrared camera.
Both Hands Their Backs Rubbing - 2020, single channel 4k video with sound, 5'55'' - "Both Hands Their Backs Rubbing" explores ways of co- writing with input method in accordance with a clumsy study of Taoist hand gestures.
皿 /Vessel - 2019, iron, blood, oyster shell, woven bag, iron powder, 38 x 35 x 50cm
丿皿 : A Case Study of Bloodletting (excerpt) - 2019, single-channel video with sound, 9'26'' - The project "A Case Study of Bloodletting" consists of an eerily meditating essay film and a few partly organic sculptural pieces. It discursively touches upon the poetics of excess, abjection, inversion and opening, all of which are inscribed on the edge of a corporeal boundary.
