In this episode we continue down the path of the provocative and unexpected with Salty Xi Jie Ng. Along the way we will encounter the secret lives of art gallery security staff, a cooking show called Microwave Magic, bunion fetishes, and a very funny group of incarcerated artists.

BE SURE TO LISTEN TO EPISODE 36 - CITIZEN SCHOLAR OF THE COSMOS - ACT 1

BIO

Salty Xi Jie Ng co-creates semi-fictional paradigms for the real and imagined lives of humans within the poetics of the intimate vernacular. Often playing with relational possibilities, her interdisciplinary work is manifested from fantasy scores for the present and future that propose a collective re-imagining through humor, care, subversion, play, discomfort, a celebration of the eccentric, and a commitment to the deeply personal. Her practice dances across forms such as brief encounter, collaborative space, variety show, poem, conversation, meal, publication, film, performance.

As a citizen scholar of the cosmos, Xi Jie explores aging, intimacy, food, lineage, identity, ritual and power, while questioning who artists are and what gets to be called art. Her research of everyday as performance bears fruit as tender presentations somewhere between art and life. Centering the body and its histories, she constructs portrayals of self and space that are ambiguous, raw, dream-like, absurd, mundane. At heart she is a cosmic clown, floating at the intersections of wonder and melancholy, existential meditation and devotional nonsense.

Notable Mentions

Grandma Reporter: We are a space for intimate exchange about: style, isolation, and adventure; aging bodies, wrinkles, bunions, caregiving, and death; considering the struggles of growing old in a young, technology-focused world; swimming as a magical way to keep fit in spite of on-land mobility challenges; food, genes, and other things passed through generations; lost loves, longings, and sex that evolves with age. Presenting perspectives that are tender, poignant, moving and humorous, we are energetically connecting our contributors, collaborators, and readers in a senior women’s culture movement.

Salty Xi Jie Ng: The Cosmos Wait for You: Salty’s web site.

The Inside Show: is a variety show produced at Columbia River Creative Initiatives, an artist-led creative platform in Columbia River Correctional Institution, a minimum security prison in Portland, Oregon. The show is produced in prison, where inmates take on roles of host, performer, writer, and cameraperson. This robust collaboration of eccentric possibilities challenges perceptions of incarcerated individuals and what happens ‘on the inside’. The show’s content includes Microwave Magic— a cooking segment where inmates showcase genius ways of making gourmet meals with minimal ingredients and a microwave; comedy sketches; a goofy sports roundtable; art segments; poignant discussions; braiding demos; musical acts and more.

Change the Story / Change the World: A chronicle of art and community transformation.

Bunion2Bunion: An artistic inquiry into our relationships with our bodies,

​inheritance, beauty, ugliness, defect measurement and DIY self-healing