Listening to what escapes: Woo Haran at the TASA residency
Woo Haran, Special Prize winner of the residency program at the 19th edition of the Arte Laguna Prize, spent two months in Tainan listening to the wind. Not just as a simple soundscape, but as an unstable material to filter, sample, and transform into an artistic composition.
The residency, organized in collaboration with TASA (Taiwan Art Space Alliance) and hosted by Zit-Dim Art Space, took place from May 1 to June 30, 2026. During this period, Woo Haran developed 오슬 (Ever-Passing), the sound-based project that gave rise to the musical composition Evocator — a work built upon field recordings of wind made during a research trip to Taitung, the city of green mountains.
In Tainan, those sounds became traces to follow and decompose, fragments of a presence that moves through space without ever being fully grasped. The stay thus transformed into an exercise in listening.
«I imagined multiple streams of wind moving independently, like separate melodic voices, while collectively forming a larger harmonic field. Through this approach, I wanted to create a musical space in which something seems to be speaking, yet never becomes fully intelligible.»
Sound, therefore, does not offer itself as a message to decode, but rather as a trace to follow: a presence that suggests, evokes, and withdraws all at once.
The final installation extended this research from an acoustic level into a physical space. A wall installation, functioning as a spatial musical score, brings together notes, diagrams, and documents; a video projection accompanies the musical composition. Together, these elements suggest an environment to navigate with both sight and hearing, much like an archive whose meaning remains uncertain.
Inhabiting misunderstanding
«While living in Tainan, I was often surrounded by conversations, situations, and cultural references that I could not fully comprehend. Rather than trying to decode everything, I found myself listening carefully and paying attention to fragments and subtle signs.»
This attitude highlights Woo Haran’s willingness to let go of the demand for absolute meaning, accepting incompleteness as an integral part of the experience.
«This experience encouraged a sense of humility. Instead of treating understanding as something that can always be completed, I became interested in remaining attentive to what exceeds my knowledge. This attitude ultimately shaped both the research process and the exhibition itself.»
A transformative vision
What initially inspired you to apply for the Arte Laguna Prize Special Prize?
«After graduating from CalArts in 2023, I was looking for opportunities to share my work beyond the environments I was already familiar with. Although I studied music composition, much of my practice had already expanded into video and other forms of visual art. One of my main motivations was the desire to see how the work would be received outside of an academic setting. I wanted to know whether the ideas and emotions within the work could resonate with people from different backgrounds.
In that sense, applying to the Arte Laguna Prize was also a way of testing my work in a broader international context.»
Arte Laguna Prize thus integrates into Woo Haran’s research as a space for dialogue between different practices, experiences, and mediums.
«Arte Laguna Prize stood out to me because it welcomed artists working across different media and offered opportunities to connect with an international artistic community. As someone whose work moves between sound and image, I felt it would be a meaningful platform through which to expand my practice.»
What concrete benefits does participating in an artistic residency bring in terms of personal and professional growth and evolution for an artist?
«One of the most valuable aspects of the residency was the opportunity to pursue a project over an extended period of time within a new environment. I was able to develop 오슬 (Ever-Passing), Evocator, and ultimately my first solo exhibition, You hear something. I know you do”. These outcomes gave me the opportunity to test new ideas in a public setting and receive feedback from audiences and fellow artists. All of this helped me articulate ideas that had previously remained intuitive and allowed me to see the work from perspectives outside my own.»
Among these encounters, Woo Haran particularly recalls the dialogue with JIHAO, a Taiwanese arts and criticism platform.
«The interview with JIHAO was particularly significant, as it encouraged me to reflect not only on the project, but also on the broader research framework I am developing through [O8kk] — the wider artistic journey to which the project belongs — and on the connections between my various works.»
A project in progress
«Looking beyond the residency itself, the experience also helped me think about the future direction of my practice. What began as a project based on a single set of wind recordings gradually revealed itself as part of a larger body of work. I hope to continue expanding 오슬 (Ever-Passing) through new field recordings, compositions, and installations developed in different places and contexts. The residency gave me confidence that this long-term project can continue to evolve beyond its initial form.»
The wind, then, is no longer just the source of a composition, but a shifting material capable of traversing different places, times, and devices. It becomes a contemporary echo, a breath moving through the atmospheres of Andrei Tarkovsky, the renowned auteur filmmaker, and the hybrid realm – spanning music, image and technology – established by Nam June Paik, the South Korean artist regarded as one of the pioneers of video art.
Every new recording will add another voice, a detour, a further trace to a work that does not attempt to make everything intelligible.
In this sense, Woo Haran’s work preserves the exact same quality as the phenomenon from which it is born: it manifests, leaves a trace, and then moves elsewhere. What remains is not a definitive answer, but the willingness to listen to what continues to escape.