I spoke to them

About

Speaking to someone is two monologues in one dialogue. Some inevitable invasion of one’s territory occurs when a seemingly fair reciprocity delivers to both ends; some selfishness is exchanged when messages are internalised. The absence of a real audience does not satisfy our appetite for understanding. But rather, we still perform speaking as if all violence is hidden beneath. 

“I” is a symbolic character that internalises and owns everything “I” experiences. 

A story that’s told by “I” is the META-narrative that governs “I”’s ego. 

“They” only become othered when “I” starts speaking to them, 

for this is “i”’s psychotic imagination of someone invading a territory that belongs to “I” only.

As the self-centred “I” presents the story to us, “I” become the centre again.

But “I” does not know.

I spoke to them at safehouse 1 is a group show exhibiting seven artists of various disciplines. It invites guests to connect to artworks in a domestic space - a space that beholds intimate and unforgettable moments, that shelters violence and secrets and which extends into the deepest end of artificial realities.​

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Lidan Yang’s sculpture, Royal Garden, confronts the ghost of colonialism hanging above the dictating narrative of current digital discourse; her painting series examines the non-neutrality of data and AI, which sets the tone for how stories get told. 

Thomas Moen retells the myth of Narcissus through his photographic and sculptural works - Silvery Waves/Hot Tears, Wraith, and Has anyone loved so cruelly - complemented by poetic writing that connects all three works. The inherent anxiety makes us stuck in Narcissus’ black pool when we internalise what we see in our reflections. But as he says, “all mirrors are liars”.

Yimin Xiang’s print series, Smoke and Flame, takes its name from an article in the Evening Standard, responding to conflicts and trauma. Yimin’s nine prints are separated from a single narrative and they become clues that guide us to corners and different rooms throughout the space. 

Replacing Nature by Ollie Ma is an imaginary environment constructed through a videogame engine, which represents Nature’s compromise in a highly artificial ecosystem. It contains fragments of Nature’s surface that were retrieved from a small area of British wilderness.

Hongrui reuses a crate and transforms it into a container for life and decay. He has planted it with dandelions and artemisia annua, the latter indigenous to China and can thrive in many climates. The Earth Speaks to Us projects the silent signals of earth that are hidden within soil. Introducing new sound dimensions to  the space. It will be shipped to a location in Africa as a gift aid for malaria treatment, as Hongrui wishes to acknowledge one of the most vital elements that the earth has: soil and all its potential for growth. 

Wenxuan’s new sculpture, Three hundred walls, still revolves around the notion of absence and borders. Border documents a process of emotional, symbolic and cultural externalisation. Responding to her other two works, Xin Dong I & II, her sculpture is an extended investigation of repression, pain and rupture. 

Margaret Liang’s photographs of her intimate relationship with Coe in Dolphin Hotel consists of performative portraits and still lifes that between them visualise desire, power and tension. Her other series, Oranges, Octopus and Eggshells, captures moments in black-and-white with her grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer’s, depicting poignancy, loneliness and a suffocating sense of the unfamiliar.