Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER 2023
Diane Jollique (Ying) Wang
Taiwan
www.lajollyday.com
About
Diane Wang is a Taiwanese filmmaker, who has studied at
the National Taiwan University of Arts Department of Motion
Pictures. Her works examine time and memories in forms
that include short films, paintings, graphics, installations,
and poetry. Through research, the written form, and timebased
media art she explores different narratives in visual
arts, languages, and the expanded possibilities in cinema.
A Weaving Prayer of the Family Tree
A first draft of a short film script called Thawing was born in
several snowfalls, inspired by the young winter’s coldness.
My explorations in writing were also ignited by mother nature
into new forms such as poetry, stirred by the trees, snow,
and the perpetual scenery of the tranquil lake in the season’s
attire. Although I came here for the northern peace to write,
yet I rediscovered my impartible love of visual arts. Studying
film and working with time-based media, time is the medium
I use to create my artistic scroll:
A Weaving Prayer of the Family Tree is an experimental
film, which was an attempt to write but became something
that could only be seen and not read. Inspired by the sauna
experience, rumination of the forests, frozen ice, decors
of lichen, impressions of the northern lights. It depicts a
silent succession in the temporary absence of a deceased
family member. Alluding to the continuity of life, a woman is
weaving a descending scroll in the forest. I envision myself
in the narrative as a character, as an actress and at the same
time myself, I become a past and present dual. Like a still life
in a chair, I am from a heritage, yet I am one’s own tree in the
making. Amidst the winter’s stillness, in the act of weaving,
past grief has become lineage to posterities of branches,
foliage and microorganism ink in motion. During meditation
here, I have peered into my own family history and memories,
hence I interplay the surrealism of an imagined state with the
fragments of frozen memories of my loved one. In this piece
of moving images, time that has passed, and time of the
future become inseparable and ongoing.
At Arteles, I learned the beauty of spontaneity, immersing
myself in the flow of collaboration with fellow residents,
and answering nature’s calling spiritually and physically.
Embracing self-reflections, artistic exchanges that expand
the fathoming of one’s pursuit, and sublimated love for each
other and our crafts.
Every evening before the last ray of sun, I’d go out for my
afternoon walk. On my last walk, I found myself spinning in
the woods. The magic of Arteles, not only is it a place where
we created our works, but a place that has created us.