Artist Statement on “Union Station” | Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang

“Union Station” is a multimedia piece that questions urban social reality. The performance of construction, slated to be infinite, interacts with an unending stream of travellers.

Construction workers, also performing artists, hang from scaffolds and scrape away worn tiles to hand-fatigue each ceramic square and replace them an hour later. Worker-artists also engage in the production of dust, shedding their skin, and scaling the floor until concrete becomes clouds of stone. The production of dust reveals structure disassociated from meaning just as neoliberalism dismantles itself to reproduce once again.

“Union Station” explores the relationship between architecture and basic living elements. Examples of energy (the woman who half-lifts, half-drags her crying son; sparrows that tremble the ceiling with their shivering heartbeats; the Via employee who hand-writes a thousand suicide notes on tickets faceless as petals) are examined and developed in absurd ways. By putting the viewer on the wrong track, with the promise of closure and restoration, “Union Station” destabilizes the idea of progress and instead encourages viewers and unwitting participants to appreciate their own inevitably failed struggle against decay.

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Some parts of these phrases come from 500 Letters, an artist statement generator.

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Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang is the award winning author of two books of poetry, Status Update and Sweet Devilry as well as a bunch of books for kids, from board books up to YA. She currently teaches Creative Writing at UBC’s optional residency MFA program.

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Artist Statement on “Union Station appears in our anthology Release Any Words Stuck Inside of You. Sign up to our newsletter to get a free sample!