Daniel Shieh

Daniel Shieh is an artist from Taiwan. He received his BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and recently completed an MDes degree in Art, Design, and the Public Domain at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He creates interactive artworks that encourage participants to view each other in a different perspective. He’s also been 2019 Open Studio Fellow at Franconia Sculpture Park.

Shieh creates interactive performances and installations that encourage participants to understand each other beyond clear-cut identifications (masculine vs. feminine, native vs. foreign, authority vs. subordinate). His works usually involve two or more participants to activate. Once activated, they isolate parts of the participants’ bodies, such as the gaze or breath. Participants then present themselves to each other in a mediated manner, such as reflecting one’s gaze through mirrors or delivering one’s breath via an inflatable device.

The intimacy of mutual display and observation, in which participants become hyperconscious of their existence in each other’s minds, is enveloped with a strangeness created by the mediation. This strangeness destabilizes the meaning of social categories and the participants’ usual identifications of each other. By fostering intimacy in strangeness, Shieh challenges categorical identifications and its resulting unequal power dynamics between two people.

You can see more of Shieh’s work at https://danielshieh.com/