We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hsiao-Chu (Julia) Hsia a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hsiao-Chu (Julia), thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

It is challenging to explain my art practice as a performance artist since my performance is nontraditional and experimental. I see my performances as platforms for people to talk about social issues. As a result, interactive elements play important roles in my work to erase the boundary between the audience and myself to have bilateral conversations. I aim to switch people’s positions from spectators to participants to experience and think from another perspective collectively.

Although dancing and acting skills are used as support components to complete the whole piece, my work is not considered a theatre piece or a choreography on a lot of occasions. People would ask if I was a dancer or an actor, but my work falls into the fine arts field better as I also make background sounds or music, installations (settings,) sculptures (properties,) and costumes to integrate an immersive performance.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a performance artist from Taiwan, now based in NYC. I have a bachelor’s degree in clinical psychology and a master’s degree in community arts from Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore Maryland. Before starting my career as an artist, I was a self-taught website designer working for a tourism business.

I have to be honest, the reason why I switched my discipline is simply because of my passion for art. I have loved art since young, but I have a traditional family that did not allow me to pursue art as my profession. Although I found psychology helpful throughout my college life, I also knew that I did not fit in the therapist position. It took me a long time to communicate with them and prove to them my determination. The offer to study at an art school in the U.S. was the ticket and the only chance for me to enter the art world.

On the other hand, I develop my dancing and acting skills as well. I was invited to collaborate and perform with musicians and actors on different projects. These experiences did not relate to my solo practice directly but boosted it a lot.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My background in psychology shaped my personality and my cognition a lot. Psychological theories are what I rely on when observing and analyzing our society. Naturally, I look into relationships between individuals, groups, or objects to understand cultures, histories, and stories. And the reason why I was so into psychology was that I was once experiencing serious depression, and I was looking for solutions. Psychology was the answer back then, and it did help me relief from the hard times.

After years, my attention expanded to international affairs as I started to travel internationally. I realized coming from Taiwan, my people and I are always exposed to the risk of a fight when telling people we are from Taiwan. The tension between two governments is higher than before, there is no more excuse for us to ignore potential conflicts in the future, especially now, when there are ongoing “real” wars that people thought wouldn’t come. I question what is worth enough for people to start a military conflict. Speaking as a human, I advocate for humanitarianism, asking for a ceasefire and a peaceful future. There should not be innocent people sacrificed, particularly infants and children. It is heartbreaking when seeing these happening.

It is never easy to avoid conflict every single time, small from a fight between two people, big to a war between countries. Being an artist, I want to make art that raises awareness of these problems to motivate people to think collectively, discuss with each other, and then take action to change. This is my mission while being a practicing artist, standing in solidarity with people in an antiwar world.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.juliahsia.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliahsiartreu/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@juliahsiaochuhsia

Image Credits
Photos of Three Patterns-Fourth Sense (two monochrome images): Van Ngo