As one grows up, the jigsaw puzzles he used to fiddle with in his hands are replaced by intangible scraps of knowledge, based on which he tries to piece together what this world might look like. These scraps of knowledge come from accumulation, mostly formed in formal schooling and education.  However, while History is condensed to fit chapters in a book, and Geography is flattened to compose pages of an atlas, are we really gathering pictures which faithfully depict this world?  We are told that the world is not flat, but the curve of the globe is never as tangible as the apple that has inspired Newton.  We tend to view this world through glasses colored by our own experiences and imaginations—everything is based on personal subjectivity, or to be more precise, arbitrary objectivity. On top of this, influenced by the nation/region where one grows and lives, inevitable stereotypes of others sneak in and nibble at the framework through which we learn about the world.

During his residency at ISCP, New York, video artist Cheng-ta Yu has started rethinking the relation between the world and self.  In Universes in Universe, this little suffix “s” not just forms the plural, it also indicates that each one of us has a universe imagined and projected in the vastness of the universe.  In the exhibition space, national flags, maps, and music abound. Yu takes seemingly typical approaches to tell of his skeptical reflections on the overly-simplified definition of world—can it be defined just by the borders of nations, or longitude and latitude? Facing serious symbols and visual/aural codes, Yu nonetheless creates light-hearted interactions and lifts up historical and cultural burdens.  Like an anthropologist, Yu is aiming for grand narratives about world view from the small scraps and pieces he has collected.

About the Artist
Video artist Cheng-ta Yu experiments the relations between culture, language and identity. His interest, however, does not lie in the conflicts between differences; instead, it is in the ambiguous fissures between differences.  He takes approaches full of humor to connect and produce accidents, and thus, new possibilities of politics can be invented.  Yu’s work has been exhibited in 2006 Taipei Biennial and won the grand prize of Taipei Arts Awards.  In 2009, He was invited to exhibit at Contemporary Arts Center, Vilnius, Lithuania, and OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria.  Yu has also had a project in Taiwan Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009.