The task of an artist is to transform even the most ordinary material, phenomenon, or object into something laden with significance. For artist Lee Mingwei, this meant revisiting rice, a grain that, though unassuming in shape and size, serves as an integral part of Our Labyrinth. Since 2015, the site-specific work has been performed at renowned institutions around the world, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate Modern in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
Like much of Mingwei’s practice, Our Labyrinth revolves around themes of intentionality, grace, and sacrality. The performance begins with a dancer unfurling a delicate origami barrier circled around a mound of rice. Once removed, the dancer gently sweeps the rice with a broom, creating a labyrinthine path around a given exhibition space. Though typically performed by trained dancers, Our Labyrinth doesn’t involve strict choreography, instead unfolding spontaneously and with the expectation, as Mingwei says, that the “rice [will] guide them.”
Other than a dancer’s movements or gestures, many aspects of Our Labyrinth are carefully curated. Outfits consist of white dress-shirts and sarongs composed of silks sourced by Mingwei during visits to Japan. Performers also wear ankle bells from India, which, to Mingwei, peal like “cracking ice” as they glide across the floor. The brooms, too, have been meticulously selected by the artist: “They’re very full and soft to allow for fluidity and movement.”
When asked about Our Labyrinth and its source of inspiration, Mingwei often references his trip to Myanmar in 2014. While there, the artist visited ancient temples where visitors would remove their shoes before entering. He found himself struck by how pristine these spaces were, noticing how volunteers swept the grounds clean not only as an offering to visitors but in an effort to retain a sense of sacrality.
“It was not only a gesture of physical cleaning—it was also a way to feel spiritually and emotionally cleansed,” Mingwei has said of his trip to Myanmar. “When I came back, I thought I wanted to bring that sense of sacredness, of ritual and beauty, into the museum.”
Taken in its entirety, Our Labyrinth is not just a performance. It also functions as a radical gift, where dancers venerate an exhibition space for those about to enter it.
“It’s a gift from the performers to the visitors, the providing of a ‘pure’ space, both physically and spiritually, as they explore the sacred space created by the projects,” Mingwei explains.
To learn more about the artist and Our Labyrinth, visit Lee Mingwei’s website.
Lee Mingwei’s Our Labyrinth involves trained dancers carefully sweeping around mounds of rice.
Our Labyrinth is not only a beautiful performance, but it seeks to purify exhibition spaces for its visitors through the gesture of sweeping.
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Sources: Encountering Lee Mingwei’s Our Labyrinth; Our Labyrinth by Lee Mingwei
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