signals...folds and splits / Strange Strangers

Para Site presents signals…folds and splits, the second chapter of the exhibition series curated by Billy Tang and Celia Ho.

Departing from the exploration of spatial politics in signals…storms and patterns, the first chapter of the exhibition series, signals…folds and splits will consider the notion of time as a series of folds and splits. The folding of time implies a malleable connection between our shared histories and possible futures together, while the splitting of time refers to the intervals and branching paths that interrupt linear progression. Through a presentation of score-based interventions and time-based mediums, signals…folds and splits will explore the ways artists challenge conventions of time amidst a climate of instability.

Continuing to pay homage to the expanded concept of kinetic art that emerged from Signals Gallery (1964–66, London), signals…folds and splits will focus on an expanded understanding of kinetic movement through an ensemble of scores, abstraction, and rhythms. With the multiple experiments activated in this chapter, the exhibition explores the potential of a small gesture and its ability to slowly accumulate into a wider momentum of change. As a transitional chapter within this exhibition series, signals…folds and splits will focus on liminal spaces, the conditions that determine human ability to work and rest, and whether to gather together or diverge towards another reality. 

The participating artists of signals…folds and splits are Doreen Chan, Sara Flores, HASS Lab, Linda Chiu-han Lai, Jaffa Lam, Carolyn Lazard, Ghislaine Leung, Li Yueyang, Candice Lin & P. Staff, Pratchaya Phinthong, Wing Po So, Mika Tajima, Tang Kwok Hin, with atmospheric interventions including a publishing project by Wing Chan featuring photography by South Ho.

Para Site is delighted to present Strange Strangers as the second exhibition in its new tenth floor space. The duo exhibition curated by Cusson Cheng will showcase commissioned and existing sculptures by Hong Kong artist Leelee Chan and New York-based Chinese artist Shuyi Cao. 

Taking the concept of “strange strangers”, which philosopher and ecologist Timothy Morton defines as ambiguous beings that study and challenge the paradox and fissures of identity, the two artists of the exhibition trace the flows and formative processes of matter to envision a queer ecology where one may relate to the collective of beings in a planetary approach. Chan’s enigmatic sculptures that incorporate and transform urban detritus, ancient artefacts, as well as natural and industrial material accentuate the in-becoming nature of materials, and experiment with logic and patterns beyond an anthropocentric worldview. Meanwhile, Cao’s stoneware, glass, and resin works unravel the intimacies and kinships across a myriad networked life forms, summoning ontologies that wander between substances, residues, and impurities.

Despite distinct formal presentations and differing approaches to materiality, the artists' creations, including site-specific spatial interventions, coexist in the exhibition space as an ecosystem that transcends binaries of organic and inorganic, primordial and advanced. The exhibition visual identity by London-based Hong Kong designer Fibi Kung makes use of 3D renderings that mirror the texture and motifs of the sculptures on view, as well as visualising manifold modes of ecological thinking. Ultimately, Strange Strangers plunges the audience into a transformed ecology that is uncannily devoid of stricture, centres, or even definitions.