Emerging from an underground theatre studio at the 2023 VAULT Festival Fringe, Traces of The Wind has transitioned from an intimate, experimental setting into a large-scale theatre work, redefining the boundaries of its original theatrical experiment.

Inspired by the wind, the piece is a sensory journey, combining objects, movement, poetry, electronic music, video, and interactive installation. It invites audiences to move between feeling and remembering.

Created by Not Set Group, an interdisciplinary art collective founded by three Chinese artists—Xi Chen, Jiuming Duan, and Jiajing Zhao—Traces of The Wind explores the question: “What does the wind carry?” Over time, the team gathered stories from 327 people across 23 countries—the salty breeze of childhood seashores, the cool draft through city corridors, the mechanical rhythm of summer fans. These shared memories, rich with texture and warmth, are transformed and reimagined on stage, creating a unique cross-media experience.

An ever-evolving, improvisational work, the stage becomes a “laboratory of memory,” where audiences are participants in shaping a shared landscape of wind. In this shifting space and time, we exchange memories, feel breezes once touched by others, and enter a gentle dialogue about presence, absence, and the traces we leave behind.