Mimian Hsu: Everyone is Asking
“Connecting with songs was the most efficient way for me to learn to read and write in Mandarin, but alsothrough the translation my family history became imbued in the meaning.”
- Mimian Hsu
Nunu Fine Art New York is pleased to present Everyone is Asking, Mimian Hsu’s first solo exhibition with the gallery as part of our Project Space: Asian Voices program. Born and raised in Costa Rica with Taiwanese heritage, Hsu’s diasporic experiences have shaped the socio-political themes she addresses in her works, including the family, belonging, and language. The exhibition will feature an installation piece accompanied by a digital photograph and a series of ink drawings.
Everyone is Asking is an intimate portrayal of the relationship between the artist and her grandfather that reconciles with the devastation of losing a loved one. The works in this exhibition delve into Hsu’s artistic practice that is deeply rooted in family history and the acculturation of Asian immigrants in the American continent.
Directly affected by the initial wave of killings and disappearances during the White Terror period of Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist campaign, Mimian Hsu’s Sleigh Bells Installation explores the use of negative space to represent the absence left by her grandfather's disappearance. In 1947, Hsu’s grandfather, Hsu Zheng, was taken away by officials after being identified as an organizer of a student protest that occurred one month before. Hsu’s installation work measures the time since his disappearance: each of the 28,125 sleigh bells hanging from the ceiling signifies a day in the time since the incident took place, from 1947 to its anniversary in 2025.
The installation is accompanied by Breathing — a digital photograph that projects Hsu’s grandfather's face onto hers as she engages in ritualistic breathing for the duration of 20-35 minutes. Bringing her loved one to life, the performance emphasizes his humanity as opposed to martyrdom. At the same time, the image constructs the immigrant identity as a history superimposed by individual experiences, rendering portraiture as a vehicle of connection that allows Hsu to situate her loved ones within the proximity of her cultural landscape.
In Costa Rica, Hsu often found herself drifting back to Taiwan through music. In a series of ink drawings, titled Everyone is Asking, Hsu’ visually translates the lyrics of “I Waited Until the Flowers Wilted,” by Jacky Cheung, to Spanish. By doing so, the artist recalls the 50 years of uncertainty that her grandmother endured until the confirmation of her husband's death in 1997. Through this work, Hsu reflects on her constant effort to access her Taiwanese heritage and culture, represented by the parallel translation required to further understand not only the language but also the historic, emotional, and familiar context of her family’s story.
Surpassing the tragedy that surmounted her family in 1947, the tender portrait Hsu paints of her paternal grandfather pose meaningful questions regarding cultural identity, immigration, and the significance of her place in the world.
ABOUT Mimian Hsu
Mimian Hsu (b. 1980 San José, Costa Rica) received a BFA of Fine Arts from the Universidad of Costa Rica. A selection of her solo and group exhibitions include: The Appearance: Art of the The Asian Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean, Americas Society, New York, USA ; El Hilo Vibrante at Museos del Banco Central, San José, Costa Rica; Más Allá el Mar Canta, at the Times Art Center in Berlin, Germany; Cubo Negro, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo, San José, Costa Rica; The Sun Teaches us that History is not Everything, Osage Gallery, Hong Kong, China; Soul Mining, ASU Museum, Arizona.