Charwei Tsai, Numbers (2022), video, 16:44. Created in collaboration with Stephen O’Malley. Commissioned by Sydney Opera House and C-Lab, Taiwan with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan. Courtesy the artist.

Filmed across Australian natural environments and Sydney Opera House, Taiwanese artist Charwei Tsai’s Numbers is an evocative black and white meditation on trauma, grief and discord. Collaborating with musician Stephen O’Malley, the soundtrack features the musician Kali Malone, and five local Opera Singers, each commissioned to sing numbers significant to each artist, recounting days of separation, to ages of loved ones, to rising death tolls.

Charwei Tsai

Born, Taipei, Taiwan. Lives and works in Taipei, TAiwan.

Highly personal yet universal concerns spur Charwei Tsai’s multi-media practice.Preoccupied with the human/nature relationship, Tsai meditates on the complexities among cultural beliefs, spirituality, and transience. Her recent projects include Lines Tell Everything about the Universe, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2021); Green Island Human Rights Art Festival, Taiwan and RITUEL·LE·S, Institut d'art contemporain - Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes (IAC), France (both in 2020); Jogja Biennale (2019); Minimalism: Space, Light, Object, Art Science Museum in collaboration with National Gallery Singapore, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, 2050, A Brief History of the Future, National Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan, in collaboration with Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, and Shrine Room Projects: Wishes and Offerings, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, USA (all in 2018); Hear Her Singing, Commissioned by Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK (2017) and Biennale of Sydney (2016). She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in Industrial Design and Art & Architectural History (2002) and has completed the postgraduate research program La Seine at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris (2010).

Tsai’s works are in public and private collections including those held at Tate Modern, London; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Yokohama Museum of Art; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; M+ Collection; Hong Kong, Faurschou Fondation, Copenhagen / Beijing; Sigg Collection, Zurich; Gene & Brian Sherman Collection, Sydney; Kadist Foundation, San Francisco / France; Contemporary Art Institute, Villeurbanne / Rhône-Alpes, France, and FRAC Lorraine, France.

Stephen O’Malley

Born in Seattle, United States of America. Lives and works in Paris, France.
Stephen O’Malley is a guitarist, producer, composer, and visual artist who has conceptualized and participated in numerous drone and experimental music groups for over two decades – SUNN O))), KTL, and Khanate being among his best-known projects. Wildly prolific, O’Malley’s oeuvre defines remarkable breadth, complexity and multidisciplinary interests. It includes collaborations with a wide range of experimental musicians and composers, including Scott Walker, choreographer Gisèle Vienne, the authors Dennis Cooper and Alan Moore, Alvin Lucier, Fujiko Nakaya, Jim Jarmusch, experimental music research centres IRCAM, INA-GRM (Paris), EMS (Stockholm) and many others. O’Malley is also a vigorous live performer and has toured around the world since 2003. His live performances feature a reverberating fog of electric guitar minimalism – sorcery that challenges boundaries of space and time.

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Artwork Credits:
Artist: Charwei Tsai
Electroacoustic composition by Stephen O’Malley
Synthesis arrangements and performance by Kali Malone
Composed, edited and mixed at La Becque, Switzerland
Voices by Katherine Allen, Michael Burden, Stella Hannock, Dominic Lui, and Henry Wright
Voices recorded at Dodgy Sound Studio by Bob Scott
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Scwebung
Published by Ideologic Organ (SACEM)
Video edited by Ssu-Chi Hou, Lane 216, East Production, Lin Wei-Lung, Wang Shao-Kang
Cinematography by Motel Picture Company, Australia, Khoroldorj Choijoovanchig, Mongolia, and Lane 216, East Production, Taiwan
Special thanks to Micheal Do, Dar-Kuen Wu, Shiao-Jen Chang, Kevin Muhlen, Amy Cheng and Jeph Lo