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CONVERSATION
The House with the Ocean View
Conversation with performer Jia-Yu Chang Corti
by Karen Archey and Mela Miekus
October 18, 2024
Editorial Note
Marina Abramović’s The House with the Ocean View (2022) is one of the most daring durational performances where human endurance is put to the test for twelve consecutive days and nights following strict rules that include fasting, being silent and showering three times daily. In this conversation, curator Karen Archey and curator-in-training Mela Miekus spoke with the performer Jia-Yu Chang Corti before and after these twelve days. How does the artist prepare for this challenging performance? What do they think or feel as the days go on? What is role of the audience for this work?
Introduction
The House with the Ocean View (2002) is one of Marina Abramović’s most challenging performances. Originally shown at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, the work saw Abramović inhabit the gallery space for 12 consecutive days. The “house” consisted of three rooms/—a bedroom, living room, and bathroom—devoid of anything but the most necessary objects. Aiming to attain a state of pure being, both externally and internally, the artist fasted and did not speak for the duration of the performance. The audience was invited to engage silently, swapping words for emotions and conversations for internal dialogues.
Figure 1. Marina Abramovič, The House with the Ocean View, 2002, performance. © Marina Abramović. Courtesy the Marina Abramović Archives and Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
This work was reperformed at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam by Jia-Yu Chang Corti as part of the exhibition Marina Abramović (2024). Interestingly, it was the only reperformance that kept to all the original rules and conditions from Abramović’s first staging. Chang Corti is a London-based artist who works at the intersections of choreography, dance, theatre, and visual and performance art. She is interested in the processes of transformation sparked by body and mind connections. Her performance-as-research approach leads her to explore different states of being, allowing for imagery and meaning to arise organically.
Karen Archey, Curator of Contemporary Art at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Mela Miekus, Curator-in-Training, interviewed Chang Corti on two occasions—the day before and after the performance—to document her experience performing this unique work. Excerpts of these interviews are available to read below.
—Mela Miekus, Curator-in-Training
[day before the performance started]
Karen Archey: Could you describe your practice?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I grew up in Taiwan and trained as a dancer, specifically in Peking opera. It’s acrobatic, very physical, and heavy on the body. We practiced a lot of Chinese martial arts and using swords, poles, and weapons, but it’s a dance form, so there’s art in its movements. There’s also meditation involved, but it’s hardcore. We were very young, and basically just beating ourselves. I remember doing this handstand and there were three different kinds of liquids coming out of me: tears, sweat, and sometimes blood.
Then I discovered contemporary dance and went to the United States to study. I lived, worked and moved between Salt Lake City, Utah, San Francisco, the Bay Area, and Chicago. Then I moved to Montreal to join a dance company. After that, I followed my husband to England and became a mother. I was very much home-bound and domestic for eight years. It was very difficult for me to get back to dancing. I was feeling stuck, and then I started to get called back to do more performances. In the early 2000s, I started working with performance artists and I did some shows in art galleries. I found it liberating: coming from a very conventional hardcore dance background to the gallery world—maybe that was my calling. It felt very natural and enlivening to be in this environment.
Karen Archey: In terms of The House with the Ocean View, how does this performance relate to your background?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: It’s hardcore, in short. I performed in Imponderabilia (1977), Luminosity (1997), and Nude with Skeleton (2002) for Marina’s 2024 Royal Academy exhibition (September 23, 2023–January 1, 2024) in London. At the time, I was watching the three different amazing versions of The House with the Ocean View. I didn’t know anything about the performers or how it was like being in the performance, but, at the time, I thought I would be too old to perform the work because the 12-day fast would be too much. The work however feels quite familiar to me in its concept of purification through fasting, silence and a minimal setting. There’s a strong spiritual dimension and that spirituality, for me, comes from the Buddhist practice. I grew up in a Taoist/Buddhist culture, so I feel very connected to this method of purifying the body and mind. It is such a privilege getting to experience this performance, and I am curious about what is going to happen to me. What will I do? Who is the, “I?” Who is deciding on moving or not moving? Who will be there in the different layers of the selves?
Karen Archey: I think that this is also one of the reasons why Marina chose you. You have this spiritual layer to your practice and an orientation toward this work that is just as much mental as it is physical. Marina also mentioned that age plays an important part in the casting and experience of this performance—you have to have a certain maturity to do this. I’m curious what you think about this. Could you have done this performance when you were younger?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: Yes. I thought about that, and we were joking with the other performers, all very young performers, that they could jump in to do this piece at any time. When I learned that the work is for 50-plus-year-old performers (Marina performed this work in her 50s), I was impressed as I had been used to the reality that youth is the main currency in the performance world. Age is a tricky concept for me. I’m very reluctant to claim that experience and wisdom bring superior advantages to creative work. With age, you step back and view yourself and the situation before you with more caution. You converse with yourself differently, but it’s not about doubting your capability or anything like that. My noticeable physical decline and the subsequent acceptance of this decline have brought in curiosity about what new kinds of limits are there for me on various fronts. The invitation to perform at Stedelijk came at a perfect time because I had just re-performed Marina’s works at the Royal Academy show and had some time to reflect on that experience. I just never thought this would happen to me. I didn’t prepare for this moment at all.
Mela Miekus: Could you describe your daily practices that help you prepare for this performance?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: Yes, because of my dance training background, I am, in a way, disciplined. I practice Pilates and kundalini yoga and do sit-ups and core workouts every day. That’s just my routine. I’m used to age-appropriate physical exertion! Journaling has also been an important part of my daily routine for some time now and, for this performance, I’ve been living in a sort of program which begins at 6.00 and consists of dream journaling, cold showers, Qi Gong, somatic bodywork, and meditation. The early rising is to train myself to work with the museum opening timetable. I’ve also drawn some ideas from shamanic practice as well.
Mela Miekus: Could you expand a bit on this shamanic practice and how that informs your approach?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: In the shamanic practice there’s a lot of meditation, drumming, rhythm and imagery. It’s a journey to the different realms of consciousness, yet they are very close to earth. You go to the trees, through their roots or their treetops with a specific path into the ‘non-ordinary’ or “shamanic state of consciousness” accompanied by your spiritual animals or entities to find cures to treat physical or emotional ailments. We call this “journeying.” It’s a practice based on the notion of compassion and healing. The shamanic practice provides a technique for channeling my internal focus and intentions. I like to imagine that in The House with the Ocean View, I am with nature, plants, animals and magic.
Buddhist practices also influence me. As we get closer to the performance, I’ve begun practising Tibetan Buddhist meditation. It teaches a form of meditation which feels quite magical since I strip out all noises and thoughts. As we get closer to the performance, I feel like I am stripping away even more.
Figures 2–4. Documentation of behind-the-scenes with Jia-Yu Chang Corti. Photos: Karen Archey.
Mela Miekus: What you are describing reminds me of the state of luminosity,1 would you say they are similar?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: That’s a beautiful comparison. When I was performing Luminosity, I also had that feeling of being in a space of nothingness and infinity. You are front and center, and you are not hiding. In the dance world, there’s seduction at play; here in Marina’s work, you take that away. The acting and the virtuosity; you take that away. You embody the strength and fragility of your human form in its purest manifestation.
Karen Archey: I understand your point. Also, I think that the format with which we’re working, this very specific interview where we’re documenting your experience in text, is a Western framework that doesn’t necessarily fit into the goals and the strategies that are embodied by Marina’s work and your practice. It’s an attempt to hopefully open up this space to other people, but it’s okay if they don’t fit together.
I also wanted to ask about something quite practical, which is, how you’re preparing yourself for the fast. I’ve heard you’re working with a nutritionist and are following a specific diet. What does that look like? What have you been eating and drinking?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I’ve been eating a wide variety of home-cooked, high-nutrition vegan food. I feel like, I am training as a marathon runner and a Buddhist, a combination of two very strict physical and mental regimes. Before working with the nutritionist, I’d been doing a 36-hour fast once a week from April, but the regime felt aimless and hard to keep up. To prepare for the 12-day fast, I did a 3-day and a 5-day fast in the month of May alone! I was very impressed by the resilience of the body – it seems that it can cope with anything! And this makes me want to honour it by eating well, sticking to healthy habits and listening to it.
I also had the support of nutritionist Lucy Slater to whom I just submitted blood tests, medical checks and 3-day food diary. She formulated an eating plan based on my vegan diet. I haven’t touched any processed food for the whole month, and I’m cooking everything I consume. I never realized how good steamed vegetables can taste. Preparing food—like soaking beans overnight—almost feels like a very ancient way of eating, a ritual. You’re preparing something that is not just fuel but impacts your soul and body.
My diet consists of plenty of fresh vegetables, beans, lentils, basically all kinds of whole foods. Lots of these require overnight soaking, so the planning and its preparation becomes another form of ritual. At the beginning of this new regime, I felt my life revolved only around the supermarkets and the kitchen. My favorites are the overnight oats for breakfast and smoothies as snacks. I’ve begun to make almond butter and kimchi as well.
Karen Archey: Even though performing The House with the Ocean View is a rare opportunity, it also has reverberations with daily life. I think about how ceremonial and ritualistic it is for me to cook dinner for my family every day after work and to let go of the day. It provides nourishment for us—both physically and spiritually.
Mela Miekus: You’ll also be performing in a space that’s laden with Marina’s presence and I’m wondering how you’re navigating the balance between asserting your voice into the performance with the backdrop of the artist’s presence.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: Marina is very supportive. She’s been calling me and saying, “Don’t think. You’ll be okay.” So number one, I’m not thinking about asserting anything. I don’t feel like there is a need to do any of that. I have tremendous respect for this work, and I think that performing it without putting myself in the way is my ultimate way to show my respect and appreciation. I’m just very grateful for this.
Karen Archey: What do you think will be most challenging during the performance?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: Managing the desire to fulfill a performance and its expectations such as the aesthetics and narratives of movement. Because you are sensing these energies in the room, sometimes the old habit, especially when you are tired, of fulfilling that expectation may kick in so that takes some energy to tone down. That will be challenging. Sometimes you just want to embellish moments with exaggerated responses, and it serves no purpose.
Karen Archey: In that sense, this is an anti-performance because you can’t perform.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I find this notion of anti-performance difficult to discuss in this context. I would say I’m just paying attention to my intentions, observing my desires and trying not to be in the way of the unfolding. The installation has already set out a parameter marking the divide between the audience and the performer, yet this work offers a lot of freedom for the performer and the audience in how we engage with the space, time, ourselves and each other. So I am allowing things to arise without preplanning it. I’m not rehearsing, but I am there. The only thing that I could say is that I’m there one hundred per cent. I remember Marina talking about how The Artist Is Present (2012) came after this because it is the practice of being present. It’s your being, and you are fully there, even though you might be falling asleep, but you are there.
Karen Archey: What are you most looking forward to?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: The first juice! I can’t imagine what that will taste like afterwards. I’m telling you. In my fast practices, I was constantly attacked by the image of food! Maybe that’s what I will be fighting against, the thought of food. I’ll be so busy doing that. That’s human. That’s why this work is very human.
Figure 5. The House with the Ocean View, 2002, re-performance at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from 05 to 16 June, 2024. Photo: LNDWstudio.
[one day after the performance ended]
Karen Archey: How are you feeling and how do you think it went?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I’m quite pleased with how things went because I developed some nice energy with the audience. That was unexpected. When I came in, I thought I would just see a few people every day and that they would just come and say, “Okay, this is it,” and then go. But they stayed very long. They came prepared to be with me, and I felt supported. It was beautiful.
Karen Archey: Do you think that the energy from the visitors helped you get through the time?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: Yes, absolutely. For instance, somebody asked me, “Was there any time of the day that you found to be the most difficult?” No, because when the audience was in, I just began the journey and did not feel a sense of losing energy. There were always people that I could telepathically talk to.
Karen Archey: Physically, how are you feeling now?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I’m feeling good right now. I’m feeling more energized because of the food; my body absorbed it so quickly. That’s why it’s so important for the nutritionist to give me a very strict eating plan so I don’t jump into all my cravings like hot pot or stir-fry right away. I’ll get there in a week’s time. I already know which restaurant I’m going to!
Mela Miekus: In the pre-performance interview, we asked about what you think will be the most challenging part of the performance. You said that you thought it would be the pressure to fulfill a performance. I’m wondering if that was indeed the most challenging part.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: In a way, it was. I especially found the evening shows the most challenging because they followed a performing arts format, which means the audience would arrive at a specific time with specific expectations and anticipate a traditional performative activity. Throughout the day I was in completely different ways of being myself, so I had a hard time addressing this sudden shift of expectations. I couldn’t’t just jump into intense actions or force interactions with the audience.
When I entered The House with the Ocean View, I consciously prepared myself, telling myself that this was not a show that was there to please or dominate; it was not going to be at all like a Rock ‘n Roll concert. I’m just there, doing my thing.
Sometimes when it got tough, I felt like, “Gosh, what was I thinking? How am I going to get through this?” In those moments, I would comfort myself with the thought that I did think about this performance very carefully before going into it. I just had to remind myself through a kind and calm internal dialogue. In the Marina Abramović world you need to enter it and get used to it, and once you get used to it you have tremendous respect for it. I feel like I’m just coming down from a high, it’s not a euphoric high, but a nice soft landing.
Karen Archey: I think that what’s challenging about this performance is that you can see the essence of the performance through the passage of time, but over a very long period. What you’re witnessing is almost the suffering and bodily changes of a person. I think if I put it into those words, it’s quite extreme, because maybe the viewing experience of it in the moment is quite slow. However, it’s almost like people are sitting with you and recording the experience of you in this setting to be able to come back and understand what has changed.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: Indeed, the physical changes in those 12 days must’ve been quite obvious even though I was oblivious to them as my focus was completely elsewhere. I like to think that because transformation happened regardless of my actions, such as setting the metronome, taking showers, sitting and standing, my changing states of being added the dimension of how time and space converge in the performance.
The beauty here is that I get to share it without exaggeration or adding anything extra. It happens in that natural process, and I just let the process reveal itself. However, there were a few moments when I worried the audience might experience borderline boredom. But then I looked around, everyone was engaged with me. The amount of amazing energy from the audience was something that I did not expect.
At the very end of the performance, when I was taking the final bows, an audience member, who I’d considered to be one of my regulars, came up to me and said, ‘Are you OK? I was very worried about you.’ Only then I realized how extreme this performance could have been for some people. Whereas I was simply focused on the purification and transformation of the body and soul. I’d never considered dropping out before the end of the 12 days, even though I had been reminded of this option multiple times by the support team. I just had this deep trust in the work, the preparation and the process.
Mela Miekus: I visited you most days and noticed that you developed certain routines within the space. For example, tilting the chair onto the table. I wanted to ask you about what these rituals meant to you.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I sometimes would play with my own dramaturgy, and it was a little game, a moment for myself. I also knew that Marina and the other performers who previously performed The House with the Ocean View, would turn the furniture upside down, and it looked so dramatic and cool, but the table and chair were too heavy for me to handle. The tilting and repositioning were the only activities I could do to challenge the mundane, but it also added a sense of transformation and reflected my rebellious nature. It helped me destabilize the whole setup and find counterbalancing touchpoints in the space. It also allowed me to play with choreography. The pushing, dragging, climbing and settling was my simple yet secret dance. Sometimes I would stand or sit on the table to change the relationship between me and the table or chair. I would notice grins from the audience—they recognized my game, and I’m happy that they did.
Mela Miekus: How was it for you to be in this space with this specific architecture of everything being so minimal? Did it start to feel like a comfortable home for you?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: It became intimate. The simplicity was quite anchoring actually. I felt like I was breathing with the space. The only unfortunate thing was that the bedroom was cold. I would have liked to lie there more, but every time I went there, my body temperature dropped too much.
Karen Archey: We thought it would be warm right now since it’s mid-June.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I know. I noticed visitors were wearing coats.
Karen Archey: Yes. It didn’t even occur to me that you had no idea what the weather was like outside.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I didn’t, but I saw by their clothes that it was cold.
Karen Archey: Did you ever feel lonely?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: That’s a very interesting question. I think I was more preoccupied with being present and getting through the day. I couldn’t believe how easy the silence was. It was very peaceful and helped me process. Again, the energy, the field, was positive. I thought I would be thinking about the universe and the stars, but no, I was just thinking about food.
Karen Archey: What was fasting like for that long?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I only got a very slight hunger-pain in the last few days when I was on my own. Yesterday was quite painful because I knew the food was coming. I was surprised that the feeling came so late. I became good at monitoring my pain threshold and distinguishing actual physical pain from the feeling of hunger. Throughout this entire process, I’ve only suffered one episode of headache and that happened in my 3-day fast in the prep work.
Karen Archey: You mentioned that the second day of the fast is oftentimes the hardest.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: Exactly. I was surprised; I was waiting for the pain and discomfort to come, but there was nothing. The training worked!
Karen Archey: All the Stedelijk colleagues were discussing the performance and asking each other, “could you do it?” A colleague said, “Well, I think being alone in the evening would be the hardest” and I thought that would be the nicest, just to be truly alone and surrounded by artwork.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: Yes, it was beautiful. Being alone in the evening was my favorite moment. Every time I saw the light from Luminosity, it felt like a companion, because it brought back memories of performing that piece. It was such an intimate process of re-relating to the work. I’m going to miss that room. Yesterday, I walked around the rooms and just looked at them and felt my emotions. I comforted myself with this, ‘The particles you breathe out can linger after you’re long gone’.
Mela Miekus: We spoke a lot about being present and I’m wondering how you navigated this quality. Did you have any rituals for bringing your focus back?
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I would always begin the performance with a ritual based on an eye movement exercise: you look into the distance from near to far until you imagine gazing into outer space, and then you bring your gaze back to the room and to whoever it lands on. If the audience is gazing back at you, that’s how I start the first ‘conversation’ of the day. That usually works very well. Then, when the anxious thought of “Oh, God, what else should I do?” came up, I would just sit there in stillness and wait until I had to pee. It helped me stay basic and real in terms of following my own body’s instincts. It’s about not allowing the mind to get in the way of your presence. The whole time, I know I’m being seen so there is no need to be seen even more. In the beginning, I worried that if I fell asleep, the audience would leave. However, as I got more tired during the day in the performance, I’d just fall asleep and then when I opened my eyes, and the room was still full of people looking at me. I was profoundly touched when these moments occurred.
Karen Archey: This is a funny anecdote; I was down there with our director, and he was giving a tour to some sort of jury that’s judging a museum prize, and just then you had gone to the bathroom.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: Amazing timing.
Karen Archey: It was amazing timing, because it may have made them a little bit uncomfortable, but they liked the discomfort at the same time. I remember someone making a joke like, “Yes, that’s part of it.” For me, it was a great moment in which everyone was levelled down as just human.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: Sometimes, when I felt that this engagement with the audience became too performative, I would just go to the bathroom. I would just remember, “Oh, yes, I’m human, and I need to pee.” That was part of the unlearning process for me—not to act. I would do everything mindfully and carefully, but I would not act. I wasn’t selling you anything.
Karen Archey: That’s interesting, the distinction between acting and doing something mindfully, which is also different from how you would do something if there was no one in the room.
Jia-Yu Chang Corti: I noticed that I even got into this rhythm and habit in my private life. I’m still folding the toilet paper meticulously! I grew up with this sense of ritual, so maybe that’s quite a natural thing for me to adapt to. In our conversations, Marina clearly stated that the ‘being’ should be the central focus of the work. In the performance, I would stand until I could no longer hold my posture due to pain and numbness. That was not acting but a conscious engagement with the body, and. I was not trying to elicit emotional responses to my pain.
Figure 6–10. The House with the Ocean View, 2002, re-performance at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from 05 to 16 June, 2024. Photo: LNDWstudio.
