The Healing of Becoming Thesis⊹
Asian Queer narratives⊹
The Healing of Becoming is a hybrid performance that intertwines poetry, choreography, and wearable art to explore themes of identity, self-healing, and regeneration.
The performance begins with a live reading of a poem in Mandarin — a self-dialogue of an unnamed mythical creature. It's a language both intimate and alienated in diasporic space, inviting the audience to listen with their bodies instead of comprehension. This hybrid being contemplates existence, identity, soul, freedom, and consciousness. As the poem unfolds, my collaborator and I perform a choreography that embodies this journey of becoming.
My collaborator wears a Cyborg Dress — a wearable installation composed of various recycling materials and interactive elements. Feathers embedded in the fabric respond to movement, activated by Arduino and motors, symbolizing sensitivity, responsiveness, and metamorphosis.
This creature carries fragmented identities, seeking to reassemble and reclaim them. As the performance progresses, the creature enters a moment of stillness, sits and begins to weave — a meditative act of self-regeneration and becoming. The piece concludes with the unfinished weaving, and I will end the performance just before reading the English version of the poem.
The performance begins with a live reading of a poem in Mandarin — a self-dialogue of an unnamed mythical creature. It's a language both intimate and alienated in diasporic space, inviting the audience to listen with their bodies instead of comprehension. This hybrid being contemplates existence, identity, soul, freedom, and consciousness. As the poem unfolds, my collaborator and I perform a choreography that embodies this journey of becoming.
My collaborator wears a Cyborg Dress — a wearable installation composed of various recycling materials and interactive elements. Feathers embedded in the fabric respond to movement, activated by Arduino and motors, symbolizing sensitivity, responsiveness, and metamorphosis.
This creature carries fragmented identities, seeking to reassemble and reclaim them. As the performance progresses, the creature enters a moment of stillness, sits and begins to weave — a meditative act of self-regeneration and becoming. The piece concludes with the unfinished weaving, and I will end the performance just before reading the English version of the poem.
Weaving is central to the Cyborg Dress — not only as a visual and material process but as a metaphor for care, intimacy, and resistance. Informed by feminist and craftivist practices, weaving here challenges dominant hierarchies of art, labor, and technology. It slows down time, opening space for healing and connection.
The materials and stories embedded in the dress are drawn from the Fabric Repair + Story Sharing Workshop for NB/Queer/LGBTQIA+, which I organized for Asian queer participants. During the workshop, we shared personal narratives around identity, styling, and self-healing. These collective experiences were transformed into the textures and layers of the Cyborg Dress — making the performance not just personal, but communal.
Credits:
Performers: Michel W, Lungssu Yen
Sound: Lena Chen
I.:This performance is a part of MA Experimental publishing graduation show 2025, at Buitenplaats Brienenoord, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
II.:This is a part of "Language" exhibition 2025, at Garage Rotterdam, The Netherlands
The materials and stories embedded in the dress are drawn from the Fabric Repair + Story Sharing Workshop for NB/Queer/LGBTQIA+, which I organized for Asian queer participants. During the workshop, we shared personal narratives around identity, styling, and self-healing. These collective experiences were transformed into the textures and layers of the Cyborg Dress — making the performance not just personal, but communal.
Credits:
Performers: Michel W, Lungssu Yen
Sound: Lena Chen
I.:This performance is a part of MA Experimental publishing graduation show 2025, at Buitenplaats Brienenoord, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
II.:This is a part of "Language" exhibition 2025, at Garage Rotterdam, The Netherlands