My Room Is Another Fishbowl
HYUNSONG LEE, CONNOR DILLMAN, DANN XIAO, WUCHAO FENG, YIDAN KIM
“We are delighted to present our immersive exhibition My Room Is Another Fishbowl, the title of which echoes the French conceptual artist Philippe Parreno. Within our exhibition, the "fishbowl" comes to embody not only the flexibility necessitated by living as a migrant in a foreign country but also the fragility of often temporary living situations and the constant possibility of relocation. Within the diaspora, does the notion of "home" as a metonym of a people's ideology, history, and nation still hold water? Through this exhibition, we aim to dismantle cultural barriers and foster connections among our audience, with the aspiration that our stories can resonate as collective experiences.
The expansive glass window of Westbourne Grove Church, expanding outwards from the exhibition space, recalls the voyeuristic experience of glancing through a stranger's world while on a walk. This exhibition seeks to harness them to similarly spark the imagination of the audience.
The invited audience will find themselves alternately feeling like residents of the space, and at other times like they are occupying someone else's domain. The Artists will translate spatial realisations of their personal experiences of home, comprising photography, painting, installation, and mixed media, blurring the boundaries between the virtual and tangible. It endeavors to shed light on the experience of belonging to the contemporary diasporic, and the unfamiliarity of the city as perceived through their eyes.”
Connor Dillman
Golden chain
Oil on canvas
44.5 x 60 cm
2023
Connor Dillman revolves around a sustained investigation of body language as an allegorical device for exploring the psychophysical effects of socialization. His practice acts as complementary filters for his source material, which emerges through in-transit sketches, daily journals, and studies in autofiction—the narrativization of firsthand observation is a fundamental throughline in his process. So too is a focus on the phenomenon of projecting a public-facing identity, which he examines by depicting embodied manifestations of the tension between performativity and self-realization.
“Golden chain” was inspired by witnessing children fling open a window in the middle of a red-eye flight. As they glued themselves to the view, harsh light glazing their faces, Dillman sketched them and thought about the planet they were looking out on. The title comes from a lyric in “Spinning Away” by Brian Eno and John Cale, a song that resonated with the artist during this period.
Wuchao Feng
Only Drowning Men Could See Him
Photography-based installation
Size variable
2020
Wuchao Feng using natural metaphors, particularly water, advocates for a new definition of identity as a fluid state in her art practice. The artist finds solace in the tranquil embodiment of water, a form of oceanic therapy that soothes her soul and helps her recognize the unbreakable bond between herself and nature. “Only Drowning Men Could See Him” is a photo installation about how the artist found salvation from the reflection of herself in water, which gives her a clue as to where her identity goes. The flowing water purifies the artist’s lost identity by isolating her from the external world and therefore bringing her back to the mother’s womb. Photos of natural scenes and personal traces are also evidence of her existence in the external world. She’s undefined and ready to be re-defined in water. The photo installation can be seen from different angles since photos are (in)visible in water reflection.
Hyunsong Lee
I Belong in the Air no.1
Reed, Japanese washi, linen thread
Size Variable
2024
I Belong in the Air no.2
Reed, Japanese washi, linen thread
Size Variable
2024
Hyunsong Lee turns to the tranquillity of nature that transcends logic as an agent undoing the weight of the past. Through slow observation and recreation of the serene movements found in natural landscapes, she immerses in her internal landscape, exploring ways to synchronise with the rhythms and breathing of the land itself.
"I Belong in the Air" is a series that metaphorically depicts the flow of air and the hope to escape into the vast emptiness of the atmosphere. In the modern urban landscape, engineered for safety and efficiency, we are enslaved within a structured framework, and our bodies seem to conform to the language of the built environment, constrained by societal norms and obligations within this tangible reality of concrete and steel. To Hyunsong, the flow of air appears to be the only element that moves freely between these structures. By metaphorically visualising air, she hopes to escape physical reality, translating the untamed beauty of nature where existence itself serves all purposes.
Dann Xiao
Melting Jungle
Mixed media installation
Size variable
2024
Dann Xiao is a multidisciplinary artist who works with objects, bodies, images, and words. She indiscriminately works on various media and disciplines under the framework she creates through her theoretical function. Her practices run through defining the delicate balance and footing between the ego and the external, probing into contradiction and ambivalence. Her works explore the grey area between the inner and the outer, the narrative structure of the boundary line towards psychological problems. The objects, movements, and conditions she composes blur the distinction between concrete things and the meanings they create, trying to break free from the destructive cycle of conformity. The potato in “Melting Jungle” is bland and void of taste. It becomes the artist’s vessel, resisting haste, false satiety it brings, a distorted state, and binge eaters’ minds, mirroring the move: No flavor savoured in these frantic feasts, mechanical consumption, true joy deceased, flavorless sustenance, burdened we endure, external stimuli leading us toward self-destruction.
Yidan Kim
The great escape - Smell Cells
Olfactory installation, daily odors, papier mache, mixed media
Dimension variable
2024
Yidan Kim employs olfactory materials and the sense of smell as a medium to create both tangible and intangible sensory images across sculpture, installation, and performance. By centering on the often-neglected sense of smell, she has advocated for its recognition and proposed expanding the sensory perception and consciousness that it triggers. In “Human Nosework Training” (2020), Yidan visualized everyday smells such as the scent of wood furniture, mold, cheese, freshly cut grass, and disinfectant, which exist between the dichotomy of fragrance and malodor. She randomly installed them in the form of 'smell balls' and suggested fostering heightened awareness among contemporaries. The “Great Escape” series captures scenes of ‘Smell Balls,' which originally existed only as devices for Human Nosework Training, evolving into ‘Smell Cells' and escaping from their original installations.