David Yu CAN
X-in-waiting, 2020-21
Video, 3:00
Videographer: James Rollo
The “x-in-waiting” series of short performances staged for the camera was made during the COVID-19 restrictions and echoes the reality of isolation, humorously creating moments of performance from common everyday items/situations. This work explores the notions of isolation, waiting, meditation, distraction, boredom, and liveness. Each video shows the performance artist being engaged with his phone while creating a “waiting” performance referring to the period of stasis that occurs in order for something (the variable ‘x’) to turn into something else. For this work, the ‘x’ stands for whatever occupation the artist is consumed with while being ‘in waiting’. The sites used are familiar to the audience as they are the reflections of the spaces that we have all been sequestered into: collectively, we have been in various forms of perpetual waiting in order to ride out the pandemic.
David Yu is a Canadian multimedia, installation and performance artist. He received a master’s degree in Fine Art from The Slade School of Fine Art in London, UK and a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the Ontario College of Art and Design. Highlights from his exhibition record include a city-wide art installation commissioned and curated by the Duncan and Jordanstone College of Art and Design, funded by the Scottish Arts Council (2010); a Triangle Arts Trust residency and solo exhibition at the Kuona Trust Gallery in Nairobi, Kenya (2010); participation in Flux Night 2012, Atlanta, Georgia with a multi-channel video installation; MART Gallery Dublin, Ireland (2015); LocustProjects, Miami, Florida (2018); YYZ Artist Outlet, Toronto, Canada (2018); and Orleans Gallery, Ottawa, Canada (2018). David is currently working on performance-based research which examines the role of the viewer as a “performer” within installation practices, which has been generously funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. David has an interdisciplinary artistic practice that spans from sculptural forms and installation to audio, video, and live performers.