Cathy Hsiao came from a background in craft, specifically weaving animal fibers dyed with plants, raised by a devout Buddhist mom. “Plant and Animal Studio” keeps this name as a token to these histories. Her current practice embeds an intimate politics of rhythm and ritual to translate cultural languages and create new ones. To that end she creates multi-narrative works in sculpture, sound, weaving, photography and video that switch codes depending on context. Many of her processes are grounded in craft practices from Asian textiles such as weaving and natural dyeing. Hsiao iterates these traditions into a vocabulary influenced by the history of Western abstraction.

Songbook for Sculpture / Sculpture Orchestra is an improvisation-based work that transforms sculptures and molds into performative objects by activating their interior spaces and surfaces. The sound rearranges a traditional Taiwanese folk song for guitar, sculptural objects, molds and drum machine and hip-hop. The performance re-choreographs the boundaries between form and use to locate a specific psychic space between one's own voice and it's interior echo, the voice of different languages and cultures. By reviving the sensuousness of objects, their tactile, auditory and participatory potential it aims to produce new hybrid languages for sculpture. A printed score of the performance is produced. Site specific sculptures (freestanding on plinths) are cast from gathered gravel and sand around Long Beach shore and Joshua Tree desert.