The Weight that Holds (from Afar)
2025
Acrylic medium, inkjet print pigment, fishing wire, aluminum tube, steel wire, textile, two-channel sound installation with text projection, single-channel video and wooden box.
Arrangements according to the site, 10 sets of works, individually measure approx. 260 x 80-250 cm.
From Afar
2025
Two-channel sound installation with text projection.
12’35”
Merely Watching
2025
Single-channel video, wooden box.
9’00”
The Weight that Holds (from Afar) is the latest chapter of the series. The work includes eight curtain/image-transfer pieces, a two-channel sound piece with text projection, and a single-channel video. It was created specifically for an installation inside an old apartment in Taichung, where the works respond to the spatial character of the place: a long, narrow room, ceiling to floor in height, filled with the shifting sunlight of the subtropical climate.
The starting point comes from visiting some of the homes of my childhood, where I could smell the dust gathering. The absence of someone no longer living there seemed to fade, yet at the same time their presence grew stronger. From this, I wanted to draw out the textile elements from images I gathered over the past three years, to hold onto the feeling of remembering before the dust and the absence—like the afternoon sun through light curtains, when reality blurs and time feels suspended. It is about longing, grief, and reimagining: a eulogy to a certain place and time.
Inside the images there are: a dead sparrow at the doorstep; wallpaper faded and patched with packing tape by my grandmother; curtains pulled up only after afternoon naps; white geometric fabric drifting against barred windows when I was a child; my grandmother’s bed; the sound of curtains brushing the tile floor in a summer breeze; and the rhythm of curtains opening and closing with the sun. In front of that curtain stands a home decoration made most likely from a taxidermied ostrich-leg. Finally, in the afternoon light: the window of the Taichung home that will soon be left behind, with the purple curtain from my room.
The curtain works are collaged from fabrics I collected, searching for patterns that resembled those in the photographs. On their edges, I sewed fragments of my reworked Norwegian residence documents, serving as a side note: if not for migration, both places might be home, though never at the same time.
Accompanying the physical installation is a sound piece with text projection, composed of fragmented voices spoken in Mandarin, English, and Norwegian. Layered like a rehearsal, these shifting words trace the changes of home, memory, and language, an ongoing effort to imagine, reimagine, and practice another possible reality.
The single-channel video contains footage from my last visit, recorded two weeks before a typhoon destroyed much of the apartment’s interior. These recordings became the final portrait of spaces that can no longer be seen, like a security camera watching the past, able only to witness.
* Part of As the Crow Flies (2025-) is a series of process-based works, adaptable to different contexts with varied selections from the series.
* This work was exhibited at Glitch, Taichung, Taiwan, as solo exhibition As the Crow Flies, The Furthest Shortest Distance in 2025.
* This exhibition is supported by the National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF), Taiwan & Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA).
2025
Acrylic medium, inkjet print pigment, fishing wire, aluminum tube, steel wire, textile, two-channel sound installation with text projection, single-channel video and wooden box.
Arrangements according to the site, 10 sets of works, individually measure approx. 260 x 80-250 cm.
From Afar
2025
Two-channel sound installation with text projection.
12’35”
Merely Watching
2025
Single-channel video, wooden box.
9’00”
The Weight that Holds (from Afar) is the latest chapter of the series. The work includes eight curtain/image-transfer pieces, a two-channel sound piece with text projection, and a single-channel video. It was created specifically for an installation inside an old apartment in Taichung, where the works respond to the spatial character of the place: a long, narrow room, ceiling to floor in height, filled with the shifting sunlight of the subtropical climate.
The starting point comes from visiting some of the homes of my childhood, where I could smell the dust gathering. The absence of someone no longer living there seemed to fade, yet at the same time their presence grew stronger. From this, I wanted to draw out the textile elements from images I gathered over the past three years, to hold onto the feeling of remembering before the dust and the absence—like the afternoon sun through light curtains, when reality blurs and time feels suspended. It is about longing, grief, and reimagining: a eulogy to a certain place and time.
Inside the images there are: a dead sparrow at the doorstep; wallpaper faded and patched with packing tape by my grandmother; curtains pulled up only after afternoon naps; white geometric fabric drifting against barred windows when I was a child; my grandmother’s bed; the sound of curtains brushing the tile floor in a summer breeze; and the rhythm of curtains opening and closing with the sun. In front of that curtain stands a home decoration made most likely from a taxidermied ostrich-leg. Finally, in the afternoon light: the window of the Taichung home that will soon be left behind, with the purple curtain from my room.
The curtain works are collaged from fabrics I collected, searching for patterns that resembled those in the photographs. On their edges, I sewed fragments of my reworked Norwegian residence documents, serving as a side note: if not for migration, both places might be home, though never at the same time.
Accompanying the physical installation is a sound piece with text projection, composed of fragmented voices spoken in Mandarin, English, and Norwegian. Layered like a rehearsal, these shifting words trace the changes of home, memory, and language, an ongoing effort to imagine, reimagine, and practice another possible reality.
The single-channel video contains footage from my last visit, recorded two weeks before a typhoon destroyed much of the apartment’s interior. These recordings became the final portrait of spaces that can no longer be seen, like a security camera watching the past, able only to witness.
* Part of As the Crow Flies (2025-) is a series of process-based works, adaptable to different contexts with varied selections from the series.
* This work was exhibited at Glitch, Taichung, Taiwan, as solo exhibition As the Crow Flies, The Furthest Shortest Distance in 2025.
* This exhibition is supported by the National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF), Taiwan & Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA).
Documentation by dulub studio
Exhibition text （︎︎︎請向下拖曳閱讀中文原文）
written by Huang Yi-Hsuan
(Curator of As the Crow Flies, The Furthest Shortest Distance)
“As the crow flies” refers to the shortest path between two points—unlike roads shaped by terrain and detours, birds fly straight toward their destination. In Joanna Chia-yu Lin’s work, this idea of distance becomes a way to explore the unclear relationships between place of birth, migration, and return after years away from home. What is home? The exhibition As the Crow Flies reflects on the physical distances created by everyday life, the quiet pain of homesickness in an Asian cultural context, and a mourning for the fragile nature of images, memories, and mediums. Each time Lin returns, she is met with the thickening smell of dust, gecko droppings, and spiderwebs—scented signs of time's buildup, disappearance, and loss.(Curator of As the Crow Flies, The Furthest Shortest Distance)
Since 2020, Lin has developed a process combining photography and hand-transferred image techniques. She shoots on film negatives, digitally prints the images, then carefully layers transparent acrylic over them. Once dry, she washes away the paper fibers, leaving behind a thick yet translucent sheet of dried paint, embedded with inkjet pigments—plastic-like, yet fragile. Unlike traditional photographic prints, this transformation turns the image from flat to spatial; from untouchable to something you can see and feel—floating between memory and material, between clarity and blur. If the development of an image reveals absence, Lin’s manual process becomes both a way of returning to memories and accepting what has been lost. More than “representation,” it is a way of making something appear again—where distant dreams of home, faded memories, and missing bodies meet once more, not clearly, but closely.
The central installation The Weight that Holds uses textiles that feel like household fabrics from memory as the base, onto which large-scale transferred acrylic images of a blurry domestic structure are collaged. Draped like curtains across the space, the work forms a large, multi-surfaced presence. Along the edge, Lin has stitched in her residency permits from her seven years in Norway. These marks—like weights or tags—pull against the unclear images of her place of origin, hinting at the immigrant’s reality: both places are home, and at the same time, neither truly is.
In From Afar, Lin’s voice shifts between Mandarin, English, and Norwegian, showing the mixed feelings of distance across different cultures. “Afar” is no longer just about physical space—it’s a state of mind, a constant pull toward something you know you can’t reach. Merely Watching records quiet, empty rooms in Lin’s family home. The images, like security footage, quietly catch small changes in the space. Two weeks after filming, a typhoon hit and damaged the house, turning the recordings into an accidental record of what came before—and showing the powerlessness of being far away.
The photographic sculpture series 2023.02–2024.02–2024.06 spans three visits home. Lin unknowingly took photos of the same scenes again and again, creating fragments that visually connect but are separated by time. As her daily life shifted to another place, her way of looking at her family home changed too—from someone remembering on the inside, to someone observing from the outside, like a tourist stepping into a place once called “home.”
Lin’s process mirrors this feeling: brushing on layer after layer of gel, only to peel away the paper underneath—like pulling herself away from her place of origin. In doing so, she brings herself to a new, temporary shelter—maybe unstable, but still livable. It is within this tension—the longest of short distances—that she searches for a sense of belonging.
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最遠的最短距離
As the Crow Flies
文／黃羿瑄
「As the Crow Flies」（如烏鴉飛行）這句英文諺語意旨「直線距離」，因為鳥類的飛行不受地面上的道路與交通阻隔，而是筆直的朝目的地前行。這樣針對距離的描述，在藝術家林珈伃的創作中，則成為了她離家多年後，構想「原生地」、「移居地」與「回家」間曖昧關係的提問：家是什麼？展覽「最遠的最短距離」，指涉的是因為種種現實生活條件而造成的物理阻隔，是思鄉之情在亞洲語境中難以啟齒的表徵， 抑是對影像、記憶、媒介脆弱性的哀悼。如同每每返家時，林珈伃聞到越發濃烈的灰塵、壁虎糞便與蜘蛛網，這些氣味無聲地揭露時間的積累、流逝與斷裂。
自2020年，林珈伃開始發展一種以攝影為基底，並結合手工轉印的創作技法。她將底片相機拍攝的影像經由數位噴墨輸出，接著手工地在影像上疊上一層又一層的透明壓克力，待壓克力層乾固，再小心剝除原本乘載影像的紙張，留下具有厚度卻透明如塑膠般帶有噴墨色素的壓克力層。有別於常見的攝影輸出媒材，這樣的轉化過程，使影像脫離原先攝影紙材的物質性，由平面轉為立體，由脆弱且不可觸碰轉為可觸可見，成為一種介於記憶與物質、清晰與模糊之間的存在。當影像的顯影在在揭露了此刻的不在，藝術家手工操作影像的過程不僅是反覆檢視記憶與自身的距離，在哀悼歷程中不斷承認失去的現身，更是試圖「重現」——而非「再現」，讓夢中遙遠的住家場景、逝去的時間、褪色的記憶與缺失的身體感，以模糊又貼近的方式再度相遇。
主要裝置作品《乘載的睡與夢》以近似於記憶裡家中舊布料的材質為基底，拼接乘載模糊家屋影像的大型轉印壓克力，形成貫穿展場，如同窗簾般垂掛的多面巨型裝置。裝置側邊縫上林珈伃至挪威7年間的居留證，像是某種重心或標籤，拉扯著這些虛無飄渺的原生地影像，暗示移民的現實狀態——兩地都是家，卻也同時兩地都不是。《從遠方而來》透過藝術家在中文、英語與挪威語的旁白切換，呈現主體在多重文化語境中對距離的感知游移。「遠方」不只是一個相對位置的形容詞，更是一種明知無法靠近卻無法停止牽掛的心理狀態。《只是看著》則紀錄老家的室內空景，影像如監視器般，靜默地捕捉空間中的細微變化。伴隨兩週後的颱風過境，老家受損，影像遂成為災難發生前的偶然記錄，同時也映照出藝術家身處他方時無能為力的距離。系列攝影雕塑《2023.02–2024.02–2024.06》則跨越三次返鄉時刻，林珈伃不自覺地重複拍攝同一場景，構成時間中斷卻視覺連續的影像片段，隨著生活重心逐漸移至異地，她凝視家屋的方式也隨之轉變——從內部的記憶者，變為外部的觀察者，如同觀光客般進入一個曾經稱為「家」的場域。
或許正如林珈伃的創作技法：手工疊塗出充滿筆刷的膠層，再親手除去原先乘載影像的紙材，如同她從原生地中剝離，將自身帶往那個未必穩固，卻得以暫居的棲身之地——一段往返於「最遠的最短距離」間，尋找歸屬的矛盾過程。