✦ Artist Statement / 艺术自述
Maoyu Mao / 毛矛予
The Chord of Becoming
Notes toward an invisible structure What does it mean to truly exist—beyond identity, beyond language, beyond form?
Not as a social subject or conceptual framework,
but as a presence: embodied, perceptive, and luminous.
From being, to belonging, to becoming.
My work is a sustained attempt to approach this question through system-building.
I construct temporal and material architectures—composed of rhythm, gesture, matter, and silence—
not to represent life, but to enter it.
These systems are not expressive; they are invitational:
spaces where perception may be retrained,
and attention slowed into a form of alignment.
My practice unfolds across installation, writing, ritual, and iterative action.
Instead of working with symbolic materials,
I compose with elements such as valleys and water temples, slopes and hidden shrines, silent music boxes, circus geometries, black-silver galaxies, and grid-like fields.
These are not metaphors, but instruments—like notes in an inaudible score.
I do not seek to perform or reconstruct the world;
I aim to see it—as it already is.
Projects such as Acres of Diamonds, OMOWO, and The Minor Academy
are modules in an ongoing inquiry into existential structure.
They orbit questions such as: How is being composed? How does the soul find its syntax? How might one dwell—undistorted—within their own energy?
What I seek is not explanation, but orientation.
Not spectacle, but structure.
Not resolution, but rhythm.
I long for a live system where the soul may breathe—
where freedom becomes ordinary, and expression, a state of quiet play.
成为之弦：通向无形结构的笔记
我的创作核心，是一个安静却持续的提问：
一个人，真正地“存在”，意味着什么？
不是作为社会个体，不是作为身份或概念，
而是作为一个有身体、可感知、具灵性的存在体。
从存在（being），到归属（belonging），再到成为（becoming），
我的实践，是对这个问题的持续回应，以系统建构为形式。
我搭建由节律、动作、物质与沉默构成的时间性/物质性结构。
它们不再代表生命，而是进入生命的方式。
这些系统不是表达，而是邀请——
是一种可被重新训练的感知路径，
是一种减速的专注状态。
我在装置、写作、仪式与反复行动之间展开实践。
我所使用的，不是具有象征意义的材料，
而是来自我内部系统的结构性元素：
山谷、水宫、斜坡、隐寺、唱片、马戏团、音乐盒、棋盘格、黑白银河……
它们不是隐喻，而像是无声乐曲中的音符，
是用于构建精神秩序的媒介。
我并不试图表演或重建世界，
而是试图，看见它原本的样子。
《钻石英亩》《OMOWO》《小人学院》等项目，
是我持续展开的“存在结构”研究中的模块。
它们围绕着一组核心问题：存在是如何被构成的？灵魂如何找到它的语法？个体如何在不被扭曲的能量中安住？
我追寻的不是解释，而是指向，或许更接近和弦的走向；
不是奇观，而是结构，或许更接近谱系的生成；
不是结论，而是节律，或许更接近音乐的发生。
我渴望一个活的系统，让灵魂可以自由呼吸，
在那里，自由是日常，表达，是一种安静的游戏。
2025.12