Subterranean Organ is a durational, experimental programme curated by Daisy Wang and Celeste Viv Ly.
Subterranean Organ features a diverse range of media including sound, image, text, spatial works and live art, inviting visitors to explore the connections between the body and the in-between spaces.
Opening 14 April 6-10 pm
14 - 18 April 2023
The Crypt Gallery, Euston Road, London, NW1 2BA
The exhibition programme inquires into the interiority and exteriority of the more-than-human body in relation to fluidity, contingency, and the architectural and performative spaces within and without. Taking the manifold structure of an organ and biological osmosis as a method for charting the space, the programme reflects on how a body/space could be potentialised as a totality and the constituents of the totality in its fluidity and multifarious exchange. As the biological organ takes on abstract forms that are self-contained and yet infinitely interlinked within the bodily system and the ambient system outside the body, this programme maps the inner connection between the human and the more-than-human. It uses the body as a framework for bio-cosmic nourishment, building a ‘cosmology’ of life, where the form is fluidly mutable, dissolving and shaping itself anew. It is able to create a diverse instinct environment that expands our understanding of the body and its possibilities of inviting and engaging with alternate systems.
The artists in the show work across a range of mediums including sound, image, text, spatial works and live art, exploring how a work could be living, fluid, in becoming as singular entities and part of a larger collective entity through mobilising the in-between spaces, the process of interchange and transgression of boundaries. In blurring the lines between the inside and outside, self and other, and the human and more-than-human, the still and time-based works turn the exhibiting architectural space into a living, fluid, and disobedient collective body. Through this approach, we also aim to provide certain capacities of a nexus – to traverse, adapt, transcribe, and connect the subjectivities among its inhabitants, and most importantly, a continual process of feeling and thinking through the self and other in an intersubjective web of becoming.
The exhibition showcases the works of 18 emerging and established artists from around the world, including:
Buket Yenidogan @buketmio
Celeste Viv Ly @virtio.djvu
Chang Gao @gao.chang_rca
Cherry Song @rvouger
Di Chen @chendi_chen_di
Eleanor Turnbull @norajelly
Eleni Zervou @zervou.helen
Emma Papworth @emma_papworth
Evangelia Dimitrakopoulou @d_mtrk
Freya Fang Wang @freyafangwang
Friendred Peng @friendred0.0
Kate Howe @katehowestudios
Li Yilei @li_yi_lei_
Lulu Wang @lulu_wangyx
Maya Masuda @maya_erin
Noëlle Turner @noelleturner_
Sasha Ercole @ercolesasha
Shadow (Collective Led by Xiaoying Lin) @lyn_xiaoying
Curators: Daisy Wang @daisydiziiii and Celeste Viv Ly @virtio.djvu
Curatorial Assistant: Fiona Chen @fionahchen1811
Graphic Designer: Hairun Li @lihairun
