Answer ── HSU Che-jui's First Solo Exhibition

Artist's Statement — HSU Che-jui Ray

What is an exam? Students memorize a history already past, in order to sit for questions shaped by the politics and social consciousness of their own present.

As a guinea pig of the first cohort under Taiwan's 108 Curriculum reform, I wrote past exam questions with distinctly Taiwanese characteristics on the front of my body, and the answers on the back — probing the nationalism, epistemic discipline, and self-aware bodily politics embedded in the exam paper. The questions touch on the White Terror, the voting age of eighteen, and more, and use songs from different eras of Taiwan to let the audience choose which one is, to them, the "national anthem" — and with it, which national identity. From obedience to the standard answer, to doubt, to questioning, to the attempt, finally, to find an answer of one's own.

Curatorial Statement — Prof. CHIANG Li-hua

As a guinea pig of the first cohort to go through the 108 Curriculum reform, HSU Che-jui photographed himself life-size in 4×5 black-and-white film for the Answer series, striking self-devised poses of "mental martial arts" fused with the wrathful expression of a Buddhist Wisdom King, while writing exam questions from various subjects across his chest — yet the "answer" is deliberately made to appear on his back. This conveys a kind of learning that never truly comprehends: once an exam is answered, the knowledge (the answer) is already cast "behind" one's head. It reflects how, from childhood, we are taught to study hard and be good students, yet no one teaches us how to voice what is truly within us. Can the examination king who pursues a perfect hundred points really govern a nation along the correct, standard path — or is it no more than martial drilling on paper, a mock battle fought only on the exam sheet?

Read the full essay: CHIANG, Li-hua, "Contemplating the Self: The Paradoxical Thought-Action of 'Question' and 'Answer'"

"We were taught from childhood to be good students, to study hard — yet no one taught me how to find my own voice."

As a guinea pig of the first cohort under the 108 Curriculum reform, HSU Che-jui devised a performance he calls "mental martial arts," carving onto his own body past exam questions distinctive to Taiwan's college entrance exams — TSMC, the Three Principles of the People, the abolition of the death penalty, Zhuyin Fuhao, and more — while also posing "thought experiments for questions yet to come," such as referendums and the national anthem. Combining this with the wide-eyed, wrathful expression of an esoteric Buddhist Wisdom King, he lights up his glasses as if consecrating an exam-taking machine, and photographs himself life-size in large-format 4×5 black-and-white film, writing parables alongside to reflect on the wounds that "learning without truly understanding" leaves on a life.

It was heartbreak that made HSU Che-jui swear, in tears, to begin making art — reflecting on how, whether facing his family of origin, a partner, teachers, or friends, he had always habitually belittled himself, seeking only to satisfy others' expectations. And so this deliberate, ongoing body of work moves from the artist's reflection on his own personal habit of people-pleasing, back to the deeper human tendency toward obedience — using one individual's life to mirror a shared experience across generations: from pursuing the standard answer, to questioning it, to finally trying to find an answer of one's own.

In an education grown cynical and rigid in its thinking, students must guess at what the examiner wants in order to score well, losing "their own voice" along the way. Examinations, broadly conceived, saturate our whole lives: children compared against one another by their parents, adults competing for jobs and promotions, the elderly submitting to health checkups — even the general election held once every four years is jokingly called a mass intelligence test.

Combining exam questions with martial arts suggests a mastery of both scholarship and combat — but by that point, was studying martial arts, or studying at all, only ever in service of the nation? Neither mind nor spirit is free. And because, as a student, he often stretched in the classroom to relieve the aches from late nights cramming, HSU Che-jui noticed that both examination and martial arts demand the same day-after-day repetition — "training" until the knowledge (the posture) is etched into the bone. Both were once meant to cultivate the self, yet today students pursue only grades and rank: "once the exam is over, the knowledge is handed right back to the teacher."

His first solo exhibition took place at the Keelung Museum of Art. During preparation, HSU Che-jui had a dream in which school was a zoo, and students could only repeat what the teacher said, like parrots. One day he flew to a new world, believing he could finally speak in his own voice — only to find himself caught, net after net, in something that turned out to be social media. Out of this came Plague Doctor: a fusion of tarot cards and diary.

Three years ago, once the university entrance exam was over, life suddenly lost its center of gravity, and compounded by poor mental health, HSU Che-jui often forgot what day it was, or why fresh marks kept appearing on his body. Long-term self-suppression had left him unable to release his emotions. He wrote his first photo-diary entry on social media: "Seems like I made progress today — managed to cry out five tears. Tidying up now, off to my part-time job!"

HSU Che-jui has now laid out three years' worth — 1,092 entries — of these diaries, one season (three months) per sheet, for exhibition. In the group photos within the diary, every face except his own is covered with a gold sticker. This is not only for privacy, but a symbol of solitude, and of the "nodes" of one's social network: once you strip away the company, or the mere backdrop, of these celebrities and friends — who am I?

In his second year of senior high, the pandemic shut down classes and moved everyone online. Not one of the friends he used to laugh easily with reached out to him; instead, he found himself talking easily with a different classmate over chat. Once the pandemic ended and school resumed, that easy rapport with the same classmate could never be found again — digital identity, it turned out, was a different thing entirely from reality. Everyone wears a different mask, showing online only what they want the public to see — mostly the glossy, flattering side. And the uncertainty of the future often gave HSU Che-jui nightmares that jolted him awake before dawn, sending him to draw a tarot card to see what the dream might mean.

HSU Che-jui went further, designing his own tarot deck with AI. In it, he wears a plague doctor's mask — to shut out the gaze of social media, and, amid the endlessly recurring cycle of the pandemic, to search for a voice of his own. Finally, he matched each three-month season of diary entries to the plot of a corresponding tarot card.

From being raised to become a certain kind of person, to actively choosing what self to present online, he has faced, at every step, the surveillance pressure of others' expectations (external) and self-censorship (internal). HSU Che-jui exhibited Answer and Plague Doctor together, and throughout the three-week run, spoke with visitors in the gallery every single day, listening to stories from people of every age.