Tsai Pou-Chin: In the Course of Seven Days: Solo Exhibition

In the Course of Seven Days constructs a contemporary allegory transcending geography and mortality. Centered on a deceased raccoon encountered during a residency in New York, the exhibition synthesizes the Taiwanese "seven-day funeral" ritual with the structure of Boccaccio's Decameron to examine the scale of nature at the urban fringe. By transforming the soil of the animal's passing into a functional ceramic plate, Tsai internalizes death as a form of persistence.

 

The series The Birds of New York further deconstructs classical avian atlases, replacing idealized wilderness with concrete realities to reveal an ecology in a state of "becoming" amidst man-made landscapes. Through video, ceramics, and painting, Tsai redefines the fluid boundaries between humanity, animality, and civilization.

 

Artist Statement
New York is a city capable of transforming nature’s scale. Serendipitously, I attended a birdwatching event hosted by a local park, where we unexpectedly found a dead raccoon during the outing. At first, everyone was happily looking up and searching for birds, but when they looked down and saw the raccoon, a shadow crossed their faces. In that moment, my curiosity about the dead raccoon was sparked. Since then, I visited the park daily to see him. After some days, he disappeared. I collected soil from where he had lain and made it into a dinner plate, which I used every day for my meals. He became my first animal friend in New York, accompanying me throughout my long residency in the city.

In the Course of Seven Days combines the Taiwanese funeral tradition of the “seven-day funeral rituals,” or “zuò qī” (作七), with Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, beginning with this raccoon’s death to explore urban animals living at the edge of human society and nature. The exhibition features the video work In the Course of Seven Days, along with a series of works on paper titled The Birds of New York and ceramic installations. The Birds of New York draws inspiration from the classical animal atlas called The Birds of America, found in a used bookstore in New York. These reprints were cut into individual sheets by the seller for separate sale. Based on size and paper, they are likely from the 1960s. To me, these illustrations are deeply captivating—the birds and their natural surroundings, frozen within the frame. In reality, however, New York’s birds no longer live in such natural settings. They now inhabit a concrete city. So, I changed the background to reflect their actual environments.

These drawings, presented as animation, serve as narrative elements throughout the chapters of In the Course of Seven Days. While each piece stands alone, they are interconnected, eventually coming together under the same sky—a nature still in the process of becoming.