STRUCTURAL DAMAGE
Structural Damage is an architectural terminology to indicate a flaw in the integrity of a building, caused by weather, poor planning, lack of maintenance, or deliberate action.
Works in this exhibition adopt the above expression to indicate their response to these fractures in the material structures and immaterial systems we interact with on a daily basis.
Artists in Structural Damage seek to find agency in exploiting the fissures that they confront in their experience, either interrogating, exploding, inhabiting or exposing these faults.
Artists:
ZOMMER
I’m for truth, no matter who told it. I’m for justice, no matter who promoted it. I’m an anarchist, any type of anarchist. I spent 3 years making a lot of work in response to a protest that happened 12 years ago, when people in China took to the streets against the expansion of a large local refinery. Archives, publications, moving images, sculptures, maps... I've done everything I can do to make the protest visible. Now I've got all these documents on one website. It's more like a journey. Unfortunately, nothing has changed because of my work.
GIULIA FASSONE
In the era of Techno-feudalism, what is being harvested and who gets to consume it? A peek into Giulia Fassone’s tools cabinet reveals a bizarre collection of loaded objects: a hammer, a sickle, a scythe, a dildo – among others. These ceramic ‘tools’ draw a historical and conceptual parallel between the proto-capitalism of the Middle Ages and the contemporary idea of Techno-feudalism.
What are the current trajectories and intersections between labour, leisure, luxury and pleasure? What is their currency? Through the restitution of materiality to an increasingly abstract and immaterial world, these Tools pose a need to bring agency back in everyone’s hands.
LOUIS O’CONNOR
Tied to the land, the farmer and the farmed play out the cyclical monotony of the harvest. Lives entwine through the twist of barbed wire and the bramble of hedgerow.
This painting presented by Louis O’Connor explores the relational oddities of agricultural life, assessing the assumed dynamics of labour and control.
XIQI ZHU
Inspired by a childhood immersed in science fiction novels, Xiqi Zhu developed a keen interest in science fiction elements such as cyborgs.
Sound, light and interactive installations often enhance the sensory experience. The artist believes that using these elements can enhance the audience's experience and make the work more contemporary. By fusing installation art, soundscapes and dynamic light displays, Xiqi Zhu weaves a subtle narrative of human-machine fusion.
VIRAJ ANAND
Perfectly symmetrical in its construction, 6 sides, 12 edges, and 8 vertices: a single unit of inhabitation, endlessly tessellated and infinitely elastic. A 2 dimensional landscape. An invisible mould, sculpted by light creeping through its apertures. Exterior, night; interior, light.These paintings and relief prints explore the philosophical implications of designing urban life, tethering between geometric languages and organic bloom. Through these contorted perspectives and an obsession with mathematical repeatability, Viraj Anand suggests that there is a potential to locate a liminal space in the units of contemporary houses which can be stretched towards different forms of inhabitation.
ERIN GALLAGHER
Emergency blankets are first aid devices that offer warmth to bodies in trauma. Beyond survival, trauma lives on in the body of those who experienced it. Its ramifications ripple throughout life, like the fragile fabric of this installation ripples when bodies move across it. This work brings attention to the repercussions of trauma on those who are most vulnerable, particularly children. Our world is in a state of emergency, the fractures felt and expanding.
WAN-TING HSU
How does it feel to be in a crowded urban environment?
The artist Wan-Ting Hsu intends to construct an imaginary world from personal experiences while living in a foreign urban city through large-scale drawings, recorded sounds, and videos.
SAMMY TSENG
Sammy Tseng’s exhibition carves out a space in the larger exhibition of Structural Damage, to explore the complex power dynamics in the interactions and conflicts of East Asian couples in a family matrix. Through artistic works, the exhibition examines the issues surrounding different family roles in East Asia and investigates the impact of gender roles and societal expectations on family relationships. This exhibition asks; how is mental, emotional and physical labor designated in East Asian households?