Photo © by Hai Yen HoIt was an unusual way to begin a morning in Taipei: waking to the sound of rain pounding against the glass wall of a five-star hotel in the heart of the city. Yet, if asked what most residents were doing…
Talking to Dae feels like rewiring my thoughts. When he described the connection between philosophy and music, I immediately related to his lived experience. He is someone who is creating his own way of living.
I became the sole child member of a Sufi whirling group. I was introduced to “Sama,” a word that translates to “listening” and, in my experience, involves the redirection of attention to achieve deeper connection.
When I realized that I wanted to be a writer, comics criticism became an outlet for the point of view I had developed over a lifetime. In 2019 Daniel Elkin, Alex Hoffman, Ryan Carey, and I formed Fieldmouse Press.
In a season marked by a surge of Asian-led theater in New York, director and playwright Tara Nyingyè is carving out her own luminous path. As part of a new generation building not only productions but institutions, she and her collaborators are reshaping what contemporary theater can look and feel like — urgent, embodied, and unmistakably alive.
Photo © by CydScottPhotoPaul Hansen is the person who inspired me to explore this theme I call Art of Life. When we last talked on Zoom, he said something that stayed with me: artists have to find their own way to live because no two lives unfold the same way. In this interview, Paul repeated that the essence of life is a long chain of decisions made based on one's own aesthetic sense, and that is what it means to be an artist.
Photo © by Pol Guillard, L’Art Rue-Dream City 2025At the Aichi Triennale 2025, one experience stood out as a shared highlight for our group of thirteen: Bird by the brother-and-sister team Selma and Sofiane Ouissi. Doves make no effort to “collaborate” or to “create a good work.” For this reason, Sofiane must have needed a radically different reconstruction of bodily context than in dancing solo or with another human. That was what I wanted to witness.
Photo © by Hai Yen HoPerhaps it was a kind of revelation when I realized what I longed for was a lake. A still lake, shrouded in mist — peaceful, yet faintly uncanny. And Morcote, by Lake Lugano, appeared as the answer, after just a few seconds of searching on my computer.
Photo © by Radiance exhibition by Mariko Mori installation view, photo by Christopher PelhamThe creations of Japanese artist Mariko Mori, a respected and well-known figure in the international art world since the 1990s, have never seemed more present, needed, and timely than now. Why? In an era saturated with stimuli, her work invites us to slow down, suspend our assumptions, and enter a quieter relationship with ourselves, one another, and the world. Her art calls us back to what she simply names Radiance, the light and interconnectedness that underlie everything.
Before encountering the artworks themselves,
the moment I stepped into the venue,
I felt as though I were descending into the deep sea.
A profound stillness emerged—the kind found when one sinks toward the ocean floor, where only one’s inner pulse can be heard. I noticed my breath slowing, and I simply watched it do so. From the space itself, I sensed a quiet invitation: you can go deeper. At the same time, I felt momentarily overwhelmed by the intensity of the energy. I sat down, closed my eyes, and listened to the presence lingering in the air.
During my autumn stay in Japan, two compelling reasons drew me to the Aichi Triennale, which brought together a diverse group of non-Western artists/groups, including participants from the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, alongside Asian artists/groups, with twenty-six from Japan, and took place in the Aichi Arts Center and Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum in Seto City, Japan from Sept 13 to Nov 30, 2025.
Photo © by Hai Yen HoAmong the countless fragments of memory vying to become the most precious, the one that lingers deepest within me is of a morning by the sea. In that fragment, I see myself sitting in a small coracle, watching an old starfish struggling in its quiet encounter with death.
