Cheng-Yen Yu – „Geopoetics: Plant Memory and Fictional Archaeology“

On saturday, 16.05.2026 at 12:30 our scholar Cheng-Yen Yu will present an insight into his ongoing artistic research project Geopoetics: Plant Memory and Fictional Archaeology.

In his current artistic practice, Cheng-Yen Yu explores plants as material and cultural carriers situated between image, memory, and speculative archaeology. Through a practice grounded in material painting and relief-like construction, plant forms are approached not as objects of representation, but as structures through which knowledge, geography, and temporal experience are accumulated and transformed. Working with calcium carbonate, soil, clay, minerals, fossils, mother of-pearl, and construction materials, Yu develops layered surfaces that resemble geological cross sections and archaeological fragments.

Within the project, “memory” is understood not only as the preservation of the past, but also as a generative structure capable of projecting possible futures. Based on this understanding, the work adopts “fictional archaeology” as a methodological framework, positioning contemporary materials and plant forms as speculative future artifacts. Relief-like paintings emerge as quasi-archaeological objects in which traces of ecological cycles, cultural sedimentation, and imagined histories coexist.

The body and material process play a central role within Yu’s practice. Through layering, sedimentation, cracking, and accumulation, the work emphasizes the physical interaction between body and matter, allowing plant forms to gradually emerge through material transformation rather than direct depiction. The resulting surfaces oscillate between recognition and estrangement, shifting perception from image toward material temporality.

At the same time, the work reflects on the instability of systems of knowledge. Institutional disciplines such as botany, archaeology, and geology intersect with embodied and local forms of knowledge derived from lived interaction with land and environment. Through this tension, the project reveals visible traces of displacement, translation, and fragmentation embedded within cultural memory.

The presentation offers insight into an ongoing process of artistic inquiry shaped through transregional residency experiences across Greece, Taiwan, Shanghai, Germany, and the United Kingdom. It understands artistic practice as an archaeological and material process through which personal and collective experiences are excavated, while exploring the relationship between material, memory, and future imaginaries.

PHOTO1 : Artist Portrait, Cheng-Yen Yu, 2026, The Swatch Art Peace Hotel Artist Residency, Photograph by Ziying Wang.
PHOTO2 : Geopoetics Series-Edelweiss (Switzerland), Gentian (Taiwan), Magnolia (Shanghai) and Crocus (United Kingdom), Cheng-Yen Yu, 2026, 180x480cm, mixed media on canvas— photograph by Ziying Wang.
PHOTO3 : Spiritual Fossils – Philosopher’s Stone#6, Cheng-Yen Yu, 2025, 70x70cm , mixed media on canvas — photograph by River Art Gallery