Feeding On Illusions

Curated by Wanhang Chao

Artists: Deeya Bhugra, Julie Stavad, Anna Ting Möller, Mosa(Zijun Zhao), Vivian Vivas

April 13 – 27, 2023

The exhibition addresses feminist discontent in a surreal register challenging the current categorization of the world originally taken for granted. It unfolds in a reality that derives from problematic practices of our current condition, from utilitarian logic to identity politics, from narrative bias to an over-simplification of differences.

Julie Stavad's Who Is Really Sharp? (2022) is a sculpture series of household objects in a twisted combination wrapped in female clothes. These objects are liberated from their original function and become new containers to carry the discomfort Stavad experiences in her own life. Her odd aesthetics aim to achieve harmony between mental tensions and self-ease, to question "Why is reality the way it is?" Deeya Bhugra’s painting Is There Anywhere You Aren't (2022) creates a balanced yet uncategorizable reality that inhabits an idealized, unconditional vision of life.

In comparison, disordered and uncomfortable realities formed by actual experiences are articulated by three artists. Anna Ting Möller's installation S/KIN (2022) presents wet kombucha rolled into long, organlike casing or tentacle like pieces, the ends of which are moistened in water in two glass jars. The work expresses complex kinship relations among these ambiguous, organic, creaturely structures. The installation seems to speak from their alien point of view, arguing that the dominant public opinion and its value judgment on the practices of transnational child adoption require a radical reconsideration. Mosa (Zijun Zhao)'s painting Placenta God (2022) has a surreal sensibility emerging from its traditional Chinese painting style. Filled with the specters and obsessions of psychic trauma, the work embodies Zhao’s personal experience of contemporary life and the pressures of intimate relationships. Vivian Vivas’s performance video AMERICAN LANGUAGE (2020) begins at a long table piled high with junk food. Six “immigrant-faced” performers wolf down food with their bare hands. The video’s scenes reveal popular, cultural stereotypes produced by biased categorization and generalization, where the diversity and complexity of their objects are rendered invisible.