Welcome:) 趁热吃吧
I’m a hybrid visual artist preoccupied with body, tech, (para)text, and spatial magik/rituals. My multi-lingual/multi-lore practice draws a speculative discourse against our contemporary techno-empirical conditions.
I make work under a primary alias Derrick Duan.
As a migrant settler, I work and live on what always was and always will be the land of the Boonwurrung and Woiworung people of the Kulin nation. Indigenous sovereignty has never been ceded.
I’m a hybrid visual artist preoccupied with body, tech, (para)text, and spatial magik/rituals. My multi-lingual/multi-lore practice draws a speculative discourse against our contemporary techno-empirical conditions.
I make work under a primary alias Derrick Duan.
As a migrant settler, I work and live on what always was and always will be the land of the Boonwurrung and Woiworung people of the Kulin nation. Indigenous sovereignty has never been ceded.
ou must enjoy the process / shame is not sustainable / we cannot be satisfied with the recognition generated by the very system that denies our ability to find each other / the act of living intentionally is a creative process in itself / you generate your own magic / y
Scroll down for a selection of my recent works.
Click each to unfold.
Maxim of the day:
1.You are what you eat
2.Time is not linear
3.过犹不及
Maxim of the day:
1.You are what you eat
2.Time is not linear
3.过犹不及
青qīng铜tóng器qì, or ancient Chinese ritual bronzeware, were excavated in the tombs of royalty and the nobility. But before they became grave goods, their unapologetically brutalist forms made them ideal vessels for ritual offerings of food and drink, in ceremonies to ancestors, deities or spirits.
Heavily inspired by these early bronze designs, I set out to build a life size sculpture for a performance in January. While embracing the stunning form and patterns, I made an effort to subvert the caste & imperialism alluded to by such concoctions, since they were almost only afforded by the rich and the incumbent. So I made a cradle, with the spear piercing right through the centre, acting as a third leg.
Cradles are our first beds. It served such an important role while we cried, weaned and grew. Yet we don’t remember it — a phantom of a bed that we all left behind in our psyche. This too perhaps eclipses my experience as a diasporia who was raised in a culture but lives in another. Now standing six foot tall my baby tongue still stutters. Home is only a spectrum. Memories wax and wane, give way to smog.
Heavily inspired by these early bronze designs, I set out to build a life size sculpture for a performance in January. While embracing the stunning form and patterns, I made an effort to subvert the caste & imperialism alluded to by such concoctions, since they were almost only afforded by the rich and the incumbent. So I made a cradle, with the spear piercing right through the centre, acting as a third leg.
Cradles are our first beds. It served such an important role while we cried, weaned and grew. Yet we don’t remember it — a phantom of a bed that we all left behind in our psyche. This too perhaps eclipses my experience as a diasporia who was raised in a culture but lives in another. Now standing six foot tall my baby tongue still stutters. Home is only a spectrum. Memories wax and wane, give way to smog.
Sculpture,
w/ Expanded Polyethylene Foam, Plaster and Wood
w/ Airbrushed Acrylic.
Paralusion x Luckytoothgem @ Miscellania
Performance by MaggZ
Set Design and Construction by D Duan
w/ Expanded Polyethylene Foam, Plaster and Wood
w/ Airbrushed Acrylic.
Paralusion x Luckytoothgem @ Miscellania
Performance by MaggZ
Set Design and Construction by D Duan
青铜器 / Cradle Sculpture for Paralusion, w/ MaggZ
Performance / Jan 2023

青qīng铜tóng器qì, or ancient Chinese ritual bronzeware, were excavated in the tombs of royalty and the nobility. But before they became grave goods, their unapologetically brutalist forms made them ideal vessels for ritual offerings of food and drink, in ceremonies to ancestors, deities or spirits.
Heavily inspired by these early bronze designs, I set out to build a life size sculpture for a performance in January. While embracing the stunning form and patterns, I made an effort to subvert the caste & imperialism alluded to by such concoctions, since they were almost only afforded by the rich and the incumbent. So I made a cradle, with the spear piercing right through the centre, acting as a third leg.
Cradles are our first beds. It served such an important role while we cried, weaned and grew. Yet we don’t remember it — a phantom of a bed that we all left behind in our psyche. This too perhaps eclipses my experience as a diasporia who was raised in a culture but lives in another. Now standing six foot tall my baby tongue still stutters. Home is only a spectrum. Memories wax and wane, give way to smog.
Heavily inspired by these early bronze designs, I set out to build a life size sculpture for a performance in January. While embracing the stunning form and patterns, I made an effort to subvert the caste & imperialism alluded to by such concoctions, since they were almost only afforded by the rich and the incumbent. So I made a cradle, with the spear piercing right through the centre, acting as a third leg.
Cradles are our first beds. It served such an important role while we cried, weaned and grew. Yet we don’t remember it — a phantom of a bed that we all left behind in our psyche. This too perhaps eclipses my experience as a diasporia who was raised in a culture but lives in another. Now standing six foot tall my baby tongue still stutters. Home is only a spectrum. Memories wax and wane, give way to smog.
Sculpture,
w/ Expanded Polyethylene Foam, Plaster and Wood.
w/ Airbrushed Acrylic.
Paralusion x Luckytoothgem @ Miscellania.
Performance by MaggZ.
Set Design and Construction by D Duan.
w/ Expanded Polyethylene Foam, Plaster and Wood.
w/ Airbrushed Acrylic.
Paralusion x Luckytoothgem @ Miscellania.
Performance by MaggZ.
Set Design and Construction by D Duan.
Feeding is an act of listening. Feeding is an act of care. Feeding doesn't always promise an abundance. Instead, it respects the time and space needed for growth.
Feeding is a durational work taking over the staircases at Dancehouse during Take '22. For three hours, we held a space for the free flow of energy, interlocking three bodies as one, manifesting as water, heat, and life. A wavering, self-efficient loop that pushes against the progression of time.
Feeding is a durational work taking over the staircases at Dancehouse during Take '22. For three hours, we held a space for the free flow of energy, interlocking three bodies as one, manifesting as water, heat, and life. A wavering, self-efficient loop that pushes against the progression of time.
Take '22 @ Dancehouse
Performance by Gemma Sattler, Molly Mckenzie and D Duan
Photos by Caitlin Dear
Performance by Gemma Sattler, Molly Mckenzie and D Duan
Photos by Caitlin Dear
Feeding, w/ Gemma Sattler & Molly Mckenzie
Performance / Dec 2022

Feeding is an act of listening. Feeding is an act of care. Feeding doesn't always promise an abundance. Instead, it respects the time and space needed for growth.
Feeding is a durational work taking over the staircases at Dancehouse during Take '22. For three hours, we held a space for the free flow of energy, interlocking three bodies as one, manifesting as water, heat, and life. A wavering, self-efficient loop that pushes against the progression of time.
Feeding is a durational work taking over the staircases at Dancehouse during Take '22. For three hours, we held a space for the free flow of energy, interlocking three bodies as one, manifesting as water, heat, and life. A wavering, self-efficient loop that pushes against the progression of time.
Take '22 @ Dancehouse.
Performance by Gemma Sattler, Molly Mckenzie and D Duan.
Photos by Caitlin Dear.
Performance by Gemma Sattler, Molly Mckenzie and D Duan.
Photos by Caitlin Dear.
Rising Damp: A Sporepunk unearthing of a queer utopia is fun, is silly, is psychedelic, is the end of time... You’re here, in the Garbosphere, ready for a new day of non-binary, non-human, decentralised, multispecies becoming-with. The Anthropocentric Apocalypse is over, the urban jungles of non-urban legend are but the sediment for the swamp we call home. Who’s ‘we’? ‘We’ who survived through collaborating with the moulds that thrived in the after-time, where our insipid minds were intercepted by cordyceps and our binary bullshit replaced by shittake.
This project, writ large, is all about world building. What does a fungi-dominant, non-binary, un-human-centric world (inside-a-once-burnt-down-theatre) look like? The answer: 2 M3 of eucalyptus mulch, colossal set pieces that are mould-inspired (one such set piece weighed ~2kg and hung directly above the seating bank), along with trippy visuals from 2 simultaneous projections.
The tech op was a chanllenge in itself -- as pictured, I had 3 computers in front of me + the ETC desk. In hindsight I really should have set up OSC-triggers for the ETC lighting cues alas I wasn't aware of such a thing. So I manually synced the cues for lighting & the projections, which were run from two separate Touch Designer instances, switching between multiple live generative visuals, plus some video playback layering. The 3rd laptop was for audio, running from QLab, and our fabulous producer Millie really helped out wit the ops on that one.
This project, writ large, is all about world building. What does a fungi-dominant, non-binary, un-human-centric world (inside-a-once-burnt-down-theatre) look like? The answer: 2 M
The tech op was a chanllenge in itself -- as pictured, I had 3 computers in front of me + the ETC desk. In hindsight I really should have set up OSC-triggers for the ETC lighting cues alas I wasn't aware of such a thing. So I manually synced the cues for lighting & the projections, which were run from two separate Touch Designer instances, switching between multiple live generative visuals, plus some video playback layering. The 3rd laptop was for audio, running from QLab, and our fabulous producer Millie really helped out wit the ops on that one.
La Mama Theatre
Performance by Audley Anderson & Haz Lugsdin
Set, Lighting and Projection Design by D Duan
Sounds by Ashleigh Drury
Produced by Amelia Newman
Photos by Kate Cameron
Performance by Audley Anderson & Haz Lugsdin
Set, Lighting and Projection Design by D Duan
Sounds by Ashleigh Drury
Produced by Amelia Newman
Photos by Kate Cameron