clear the air - 心結

Yen-Chao Lin’s work navigates memory and the spectral traces of history through a multidisciplinary practice. Having moved from Taipei to Montreal at thirteen, Yen-Chao has long grappled with the push and pull of her dual identities as both Taiwanese and a racialized settler in Canada. Her work often investigates how cultural heritage and personal hauntology intertwine, drawing from traditions in religious and divination practices, folklore, and forgotten rituals.

In her project clear the air - 心結, Yen-Chao revisits the ancient Chinese art of knot-making, once used as a means of recording events through fibre patterns. With time, the meanings embedded in these knots have faded, eroded with the materials themselves. Today, Chinese knot-making is a fading craft, yet it remains omnipresent in Taiwan’s daily life, carrying a quiet resilience. In this work, a closed, three-dimensional curve unravels and tangles, visually documenting time-based rituals and labour. Each knot encapsulates a moment—a small challenge that holds a fleeting feeling, a thread of lived experience. Yen-Chao uses this process to confront questions of belonging and estrangement, asking: how do we untie the knots of the heart that bind us, yet simultaneously hold us apart?