Arch ARC: Action, Rebuild, Curse comprises four chapters. ow as a metaphor for the body, the work explores the relationship between power, discipline, and subjectivity within social relations. In the first three chapters—Action, Rebuild, and Curse—the four artists construct a fluid tension structure with their bodies. There is no single controller; they support and pull on each other, collectively suspending the moment of “launch.” In the final chapter, they invite the audience to engage in physical interaction, blurring the boundaries between performers and audience.
The bow, as a metaphor for the body, as a field repeatedly acted upon by power, gender, and discipline, is distorted by social “tension” in its natural form, becoming a suspended violence—the arrow is on the string, but the bow is not released. In the collective performance of identity, the artist awaits the reactionary force under pressure. Our subjectivity is fluid, mutually supporting and pulling on each other, forming a temporary, unstable tension structure. This relationship deconstructs the single arrow of power, suggesting that control and obedience, action and reaction, coexist in the same field. A fully drawn bow naturally points to something “outside.”
The bullseye we question—whether it’s the power structure or the logic of capital—will become certainties of eternal demise.
Our actions are rituals that infinitely prolong this moment of drawing the bow; every point in time and space is the anchor point of the string, striking the body and what we are connected to and fascinated by.
“NIGHT SCHOOL NY INSIGHT” Vol. 63
Bow ARC: action,rebuild,curse – Performance Review
Lecture: Karboo Collective
Host：Jody Huang
Dec 4th, 2025 (Thu)
Sponsor: UP-ON Performance Art Archive
Sponsor: Nongyuan International Art Village
Karboo Collective is an independent art collective founded in 2025 by four artists. They focus on gender, rights, and identity. Using art as a method, they continuously challenge the passive position of contemporary young artists and empower them through exhibitions, performance art, workshops, and other media.
Members
Linxi LI
Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the National School of Fine Arts in Limoges, France, with participation in the TKR Master’s exchange program at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Recipient of multiple national scholarships from China, France, and Sweden. Works exhibited extensively in France, China, and Sweden. Currently based and working in Chengdu and France. Her cross-cultural experiences studying and living in China, France, and Sweden have enriched her understanding and reflection on her personal identity as a woman from rural Southwest China. Through a collage of diverse media—performance, installation, and video—her cross-media artistic language liberates her practice from constraints of location, material, and culture. Constantly shifting and combining contradictory states—improvisation and repetition, nature and artifice, private and public, stillness and motion—her work outlines her contemporary reflections on the body, femininity, and fluidity. She has participated in French festivals including L’Été Possible, Curieux Monuments Printemps Timide, and Chengdu’s 2024UP-ON International Live Art Festival, as well as residency programs at institutions such as École d’art de GrandAngouleme, La Maison François Méchain, La Métived, and Chendanse. She is the 2025 Collaborative Artist for A4 WENXIN.
Zhiyang LI
Currently based in Chengdu, Sichuan, independent artist. Constructs an “interpenetrating space” through visual practices including performance, installation, painting, and video. Treating the body as a sensitive specimen, immerses it in toxic environments, processes of decay, and artificial settings, observing how all existences connect and transform one another. Attempts to touch the “interstices” between fictional daily life and chaotic reality, seeking to generate effects through personal experimentation across diverse fields, probing for authenticity.
Mingyi Wei
The works primarily consist of performance, video, and site-specific art. Rooted in identity, the creations explore intergenerational trauma within families through personal experiences, seeking transformative pathways amidst structural imbalances between the individual and collective, and the absence of identity discourse and relational connections. It examines the complex interplay of gender, identity, and family within East Asian cultural contexts, focusing on how individuals navigate equilibrium within collective cultural frameworks amid globalization and rapid contemporary shifts. Simultaneously, it employs personal narratives to engage with women’s issues and the social existence of marginalized groups, translating embodied action into tangible artistic practice.
Yi Wu
Photographic artist, poet, and writer whose practice explores the interplay between the body and its environment, the symbiotic relationship between personal experience, time, and memory, and transcendental spirituality. Photographic works have been exhibited at Bloom Art Gallery in London, ArTanto Space in Shanghai, F35 Gallery in Shanghai, Chengdu Yulin Theatre Arts Festival, and Huan She, among others. Published in the photography monograph Where All Things Overlap, poetry selections appear in Zero Zero Poetry Panorama and Sichuan Poets, among other publications. Long-term resident near the humid and foggy Tropic of Cancer.
works
Chapter One｜ACTION — The Unfinished Power of a Past Life
Chapter Two｜REBUILD ——A bow drawn to its limit, naturally pointing toward an “outside”
Chapter Three | Curse A ritual that unfolds in an instant, yet stretches on infinitely
Chapter Four｜Betting Feathers, Winning an Arc
