Rae Yuping Hsu
How Many Citizens are Living in this Body?
When I first arrived in the US in 2016 I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease after three months. The doctors attributed it to stress and cultural shock, but in retrospect, it could've been a symptom of gut colonization. I have just initiated an application for citizenship in the US. During the months where I was preparing 200+ pages of application material, I read studies that stated the swift loss of indigenous gut microbiome in immigrants coming to the US. This loss of biodiversity leads to various metabolic diseases. Perhaps my citizenship application had begun six years ago, inside my gut.
During this residency I will be sequencing my gut microbiome over a period of time. This will occur alongside the sequencing of my mother and grandmother's gut microbiomes, both of whom are residing in Taiwan. An interpretation of the results will be performed through the lens of alien ontology, choreographing the primordial desire to become other with questions of microbial agency, identity and citizenship.
Rae Yuping Hsu
Rae Yuping Hsu is an artist and educator from Taipei, Taiwan, currently based in New York, United States. Her practice is research-based and materially-informed, spanning across multiple disciplines and materials; from hot glass to fibroblasts, passports to fecal sports. Her recent works speculate on microbial ethics within interplanetary travel, reconstructing colonial narratives through alternative cosmologies regarding the celestial and its extended voyages.