Developed during Zishi Han’s residency at YDP, the durational performance Nearing marks a new direction in the artist’s practice, extending an ongoing interest in how bodies, materials and spaces become attuned to one another.

Bringing together live guzheng and cello improvisation with a new installation at the YDP Artist’s Lab, the performance considers tuning as a culturally shaped and historically shifting system. It explores how proximity without unison might offer another possibility for coexistence.

Two musicians listen and respond to one another without making eye contact, working with closely spaced frequencies, microtonal shifts and sustained tones. Translucent sculptural structures interrupt visibility between the musicians and the audience, shaping how each becomes perceptible to the others.

Within this intimate environment, sounds approach, overlap, drift apart and linger. Small gestures of accommodation and resistance unfold over time, as bodies adapt to conditions they cannot fully perceive or control. Performers: Cello: Garwyn Linnell Guzheng: Kang Yang Special thanks to Tangram