Ting-Jung Chen: Here on the Edge of the Sea we Sit

About

Does power whisper?
How are territories communicated?
Can collective identity be perceived sensually?
Taiwanese artist Ting-Jung Chen explores these fundamental questions in her first solo exhibition in Germany, creating a scenario that is both conceptual and haunting. Echoes of political speeches and public monuments resonate throughout the exhibition. It offers a critical perspective on the ways in which narratives, power, and identity are not only constructed, but also expressed and fought out in public and private spaces.

Artist Talk with Ting-Jung Chen & Salomé Voegelin,
March 23, 3:00 PM

Performance with Rabih Beaini & Yi-Wei Tien
May 3rd, 6:00 p.m.
May 4th, 2:00 p.m

Chen's multifaceted exhibition Here on the Edge of the Sea We Sit explores the interplay between sound and the sensory impressions it evokes. She places a particular focus on how power structures exploit these factors to consolidate their control. At the same time, Chen questions the systems and narratives that define shared history. Her work critically examines the "ideal" narratives and images often used in political rhetoric or monuments. These idealized forms, generalized and abstracted, are propagated by those in power and serve to influence perception and the transmission of information, ultimately shaping collective identity and national self-understanding.

Upon entering the exhibition, visitors are immediately confronted with large objects leaning in different directions. They resemble stranded buoys and evoke an almost post-apocalyptic, dystopian scenario. The massive, architectural sculptures, rendered in a uniform pattern of gray tones, are loosely connected by cables. Seemingly disconnected from their original function as boundary markers and surveillance points, the location information they convey from the sea turns out to be arbitrary. Driven away from their intended context, they take on the fluid, nonspecific character of monuments and territories. Made from white paper and newspapers with different ideological, linguistic, and geographical backgrounds, the buoys function as visual metaphors for the intertwining of competing ideologies. The layering and compaction of the material creates an encrusted surface that evokes echoes of other times. At the same time, they evoke waves and loops of time that question our understanding of linear processes. The nature of the material suggests that these oversized sculptures are made of heavy building materials such as cement or granite, reminiscent of weapons, bunkers, or temporary shelters. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that the sculptures are in fact made of fragile papier-mâché.

Sounds of varying intensities emanate from the interior of these dysfunctional, identity-less objects. The hollow paper structures, which also serve as large resonating chambers for amplifying individual sound frequencies, emit echoing, layered, and consonant tones that occasionally sound discordant. This creates a cryptic dialogue in the space, recalling vague signals from the past and reinforcing the tension between the physical presence of the sculptures and the intangible, changing sounds that surround them. The complex interactive sound installation, composed of public speeches by political figures, fills the entire space, thus connecting all parts of the exhibition. By experimenting with different reception modes and perceptual possibilities, Chen explores the dynamic interplay of private and public listening experiences, each of which shapes the transmission of information in its own way. Through headphones, all visitors can listen to their own personal soundtrack, created by each individual's unique path through the exhibition. This intimate experience blends with sounds played through speakers throughout the space, creating a sensory entanglement that connects personal and collective listening spaces.

In the front of the exhibition, Ting-Jung Chen's expansive buoy sculptures embody the overwhelming, monumental nature of official narratives about collective identity. In the rear of the exhibition, however, experiences of overload are transposed into a sensory realm beyond the tangible and material world. Here, visitors enter a dark space partitioned off by four black truck tarpaulins suspended from the ceiling. As their eyes adjust to the darkness, the sound initially perceived through headphones is overlaid by an increasing noise, and a bright light suddenly floods the room, briefly blinding visitors. With the temporary loss of vision, the noise first shifts to a single frequency and finally fades to silence. After the bright flash of light, visible traces of inverted colors linger in the darkness.

This mixture of sensory overload and deprivation causes visitors to become immediately aware of their senses. They are exposed to harsh contrasts and exuberant stimuli, reflected in the massive sculptures and excerpts from the ideological speeches in the front area. The fluidity of the sound creates a "counter-monument" that activates the visitors' agency and generates noise and dissonance beyond the harmonic systems. In this way, sounds and events are translated multiple times and transformed into expanded, plural narratives. This opens up multiple temporal planes and brings alternative forms of bodily empowerment and the various types of boundary drawing to the visitors' consciousness.

A sound art exhibition as part of MaerzMusik 2025 .

Ting-Jung Chen is a 2024/25 Music & Sound Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.
The exhibition was created during her residency in Berlin and curated by Sebastian Dürer and Natalie Keppler .
The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program is funded by the Federal Foreign Office and the Berlin Senate.

With the kind support of the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan, the Taipei Mission to the Federal Republic of Germany and the National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taiwan.