Invisible flesh
In the previously mentioned works of her early period, she mostly used her own body as her creative medium. Yet over time her focus has turned from her own body toward the various behind-the-scenes mechanisms that are manipulating bodies. If her earlier work mainly had a focus on “the performance of the visible body,” then her more recent work could be described as focusing on “the invisible body.”
In her 2015 show Sewing Fields, her “embroidering actions” are no longer hidden as they are in Complexing Body. Rather, the exhibition spotlights the embroidery process, which is usually overlooked by most people, and features workers who punch in with timecards at the start and finish of work. In the past we would have only seen the finished product as a work of art, but here Hou uses this exhibition of her work to revisit “the process of how a work is created,” before touching upon the labor issues involved in the mechanisms of the arts’ creation. The labor involved in creating art formerly was hidden in the product itself, but Hou has used “on site” embroidery and punch cards to offer an “institutional critique” of the hidden mechanisms endemic to these types of exhibitions.
Sewing Fields venue, 2015