Pei-Hsuan Wang

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Origin Myth is a mixed-media installation featuring a toy train, objects on loan from the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics and the Fries Museum, and a pair of ceramic statues in sancai style. Commissioned by Framer Framed, the installation readapts the artist’s automated work Train, first presented in her solo project Ghost Eat Mud (2022, Kunsthal Gent, BE). That project explored the entanglement of familial history with the presence of the West in the artist’s birthplace Taiwan and adopted home Belgium, as well as the ideals of speed, progress, and Westward aspiration.

In Origin Myth, these concerns are reframed with new constellations of objects. The sancai-style statues, sculpted as prototypes for a pair of bronze guardians made for the Belgian coastal village of De Haan, incorporate Asia-Pacific motifs and lores. The bronze guardians overlook the North Sea, standing watch over the coast and evoking bodies of water that connect continents. The sancai style’s ties to the Tang dynasty of China (618 - 907 CE) allude to a golden age of Han identity, cosmopolitan exchange, and imperial expansion. Shown reclining on pillows, the prototypes recall the artist’s encounter with a clay figure from the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE) – another formative era of Han identity – stored in a Belgian archive depot: an absurd resting place for a displaced origin.

The museum loans form a twelve-animal bestiary of the Chinese cycle, with the zodiac signs of the artist and her family (Rabbit, Dragon, Mouse, Dog) occupying the upper tiers of the vitrine. Together, these elements conjure a theater of memory and wonder. The installation stages cyclical time alongside speed and momentum, its rhythmic movement unhindered by the notion of linear progression as it meets the timelessness of the ceramic material. Origin Myth contemplates roots as multiple, meandering, and transnational, shaped by the layered cultural and imperial histories that traverse the artist’s experience.



Origin Myth
Mixed Media Installation
Dimensions variable 
2025

1.
Train
Hedgehog plushie, motor, MDF, steel, stainless steel, electrical parts, mixed media
Dimensions variable
2022

2.
Statue of Asking: Ode to the Belgian Coast I & II
Stoneware, glaze, transport cushions from the museum loan crates
40 x 70 x 40 cm
40 x 74 x 40 cm
2024

3.
Menagerie Imperium
Collection of ceramic objects, on loan from the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics and the Fries Museum
Dimensions variable

Objects:

Sculpture in the Form of a Mouse
Earthenware, c. 1900 - 1990, Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics,
Leeuwarden; long-term loan of the Ottema-Kingma Foundation

Saucer Decorated with Landscape, Figure, and Cow
Porcelain, c. 1680 - 1700, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; long-term loan of Provincie Fryslân – bequest Mr. A. Looxma Ypeij

Bowl with Wavy Rim and Tiger
Porcelain, c. 1710, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; long-term loan of Provincie Fryslân

Lidded Soup Tureen with Rabbit
Earthenware, c. 1700s, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden

Architectural Fragment in the Form of a Dragon
Earthenware, c. 1000 - 1900, Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics,
Leeuwarden; long-term loan of the Ottema-Kingma Foundation

Vase with Snake Motifs in Blue Underglaze
Porcelain, c. 1662 - 1722, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; long-term loan of Provincie Fryslân – bequest Mr. A. Looxma Ypeij

Sculpture of a Horse
Stoneware, c. 1100s, Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics,
Leeuwarden; long-term loan of the Koninklijke Vereniging van Vrienden der Aziatische Kunst – donation by Koos de Jong

Tile Depicting a Shepherd and Sheep
Earthenware, 1963, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden

Fragment of Monkey Figurine in Red Clay: ‘See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil’
Earthenware, c. 1800s, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; long-term loan of Provincie Fryslân

Saucer with Rooster Among Flowering Plants in Familie Rose Style
Porcelain, c. 1735 - 1750, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; long-term loan of Provincie Fryslân – bequest Mr. A. Looxma Ypeij

Polychrome Sculpture of a Buddhist Lion with a Cub
Earthenware, c. 1800 - 1900, Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics, Leeuwarden; long-term loan of the Bruikleen Gemeente Leeuwarden

Sculpture of a Wild Boar or Pig
Earthenware, c. 1700 - 1799, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; long-term loan of Provincie Fryslân – donation by Kate Bisschop-Swift