Digging through Softness: a response by Tianjiao Wang

Images taken by Tianjiao Wang with courtesy of Taitai x Tina

Digging through Softness was a performance by TAITAI+/-/x/÷Tina, presented as part of the program of Alana Ferguson’s exhibition SLAPHAPPY at Comfort Station on Friday, April 25, 2025.

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The objects in the show may appear to lack practical function, yet their textures, colors, shapes, and even sounds and incidental physical mechanisms seduce viewers into lingering. TAITAIxTina’s performance is both a response to these works and a new layer of interaction, coexisting in harmony through similar elements and a shared sensibility.

I felt myself drawn into the performance through a delicate and unconventional use of a familiar, functional object. It was a common floor lamp—the kind often found in domestic spaces—typically composed of three or four tubular segments stacked vertically, but Taitai had disassembled the lamp. The electrical cord still threaded through all the pieces as one continuous line, but the segments were laid out horizontally on the floor, each one suspended just above the ground, trailing along the wire in a straight line. My relationship with Taitai's performance resembles that of a stretched and restructured floor lamp—still retaining a certain ‘floor lamp-ness.’ I found myself unexpectedly and continuously discovering elements that felt both familiar and unfamiliar—narratives, gestures, perceptions, sensations.

Images taken by Tianjiao Wang with courtesy of Taitai x Tina

Taitai’s performance kept me on edge. You don’t know if the lamp’s bulb, submerged in water, might suddenly electrocute her. You don’t know if the fruit knife in her hand might slip, if she’ll forget for a moment which side is sharp and which is blunt. You watch as she closes her eyes and runs the dull side across her skin. It’s sensory—deeply so. Beyond the psychological tension brought by the visual shocks, there’s also an unwelcome olfactory layer. The gelatin jellies—shiny, seductive, slippery as they appear—carry a repelling scent, a byproduct of processed animal bones. And then there’s the sound. The aluminum foil screeches underfoot. The gelatin jellies hit the floor with a thud, over and over, a violence you can hear.

Performance differs from film in that it is open—unframed. It allows for gaps in vision. Like a temporary sculpture, it is impossible to see from all angles at once. There’s no room to zoom out—each gesture unfolds so quickly you’re reluctant to look away, even briefly, even when nothing is “happening.” It is unlike film also because the performer knows you are watching her—not just an abstract “audience,” but you, specifically. The act of witnessing is mutual. I’ve been trying very hard to recall this performance as a durational work—what it resembles and what it truly is. I am an experienced long-haul flyer. Flying is a purposeful durational thing. The relationship, I think, between Taitai and the concept of durational work is this: I need to follow Taitai’s practice, especially the practices she will undertake in the future, in order to gain insights that can illuminate past moments. Or perhaps, it is in the interval between this performance of hers and the next that I will naturally obtain more lived experiences—ones that retroactively inform the past and open up new anticipations for the future. With Taitai, durational doesn’t seem to describe a single performance’s unfolding, but rather a broader stretch of lived time—time in which I must carry the memory of this performance forward, letting it subtly shape the days to come.

Images taken by Tianjiao Wang with courtesy of Taitai x Tina

In the end, I must admit—
there is a struggle in remembering.
To recall what happened,
what truly unfolded,
eludes the neat clarity of description.

So I offer this instead,
a small poem within my capacity—
to recount,
however faintly,
what it was that happened.

She wore a mint-green silk dress,
with what seemed like a nude-colored swimsuit underneath.
She stepped into the bathroom and rinsed a transparent bag under cold water.
She bathed with the gelatin jellies.

Her entrance was marked by throwing the gelatin jellies onto the floor of the main room.

A soft gelatin jelly—
Could something soft cause damage to a hard floor?
No.

That soft thing seemed to hold a strange resilience.
It wasn’t deformed, though small fragments chipped off its edges.

Would bending the gelatin jelly with one’s knees cause damage?
Maybe—if you also dug your fingers into it.

It was a clawing motion.
The last time I thought of this gesture was in giving birth,
when a doctor separates the placenta by hand.

Inside the gelatin jellies were embedded a dollar bill, a coin.
The mouth works better—like spitting out a fishbone—
to expel the coin encased in jelly.

Are the jellies still of use?
Perhaps—they’re still carefully wrapped in aluminum foil.
Tucked with the discipline of a soldier folding a blanket.

There are still jellies in the pool of the bathroom.
They must all be taken out.
They rub against the body, soft to the touch.

It feels as if one might stand atop them.

As if they could absorb the weight.

The knees become independent fulcrums.

She enters the bathroom again,
retrieves the last jellies from the pool.
By now, the mint-green dress is completely soaked.
By now, her hair is drenched too.

A jelly clamped between her lips—
Her limbs are then free to wriggle.

The aluminum foil on the ground is both path and bedsheet.
She lies on it, writhing.
Her feet kick the foil like tossing off a blanket.
Both hands pillow the back of her head.

At last, she can close her eyes,
meditate,
listen to the sound of air,
listen to the sound of her own breath.

She spits out the gelatin jelly from her mouth.
Finds the previously folded jelly-blanket.
Continues—flips it, folds it tighter.
Adds this new one in.
All of them, folded in.

Ah! The mint-green wax that's been heating—
she hasn’t yet enjoyed it.
Now is the time.
She pours it out, bit by bit—like thick, sticky honey.
Applies it to her feet,
fixes one foot to a plastic lid,
the other on artificial grass.

It dries.
It sticks.

Shoes!
She puts them on.
She strides—
bold, unbothered.
Foil flies.
The room explodes into a storm.

The foil becomes a dress.
The space re-forms.
The beginning?
Gone.

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Tianjiao Wang is interested in acknowledging the presence of things. She is a practicing artist focusing on photography and film. She was born in Beijing and now lives in Chicago.