An exhibition by the Millennial Chinese artist Shuang Li will soon be unveiled at Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai and will explore humanity’s complicated relationship with digital communication tools.
Titled “Distance of the Moon,” the exhibition will be the 34-year-old Li’s first solo institutional show in Asia, with support from Fondazione Prada.
More than 20 pieces, including a series of new works conceived especially for Prada Rong Zhai, will be unveiled on Nov. 6. The exhibition will be open to the public through Jan. 12.
Li’s work, which spans performance, interactive web sites, sculpture, moving images and multimedia installations, is rooted in the contemporary digital landscape and focuses on diverse forms of interaction between the medium and its user.
Li’s “Shackles”
Courtesy
The upcoming exhibition will “delve into the dilemma of communication in the highly mediated reality we live in today, as well as the complicated mother-child relationship [under the historical period of China‘s one-child policy],” Prada Rong Zhai said in a statement.
For Shuang, technology and algorithms become barriers to communication, especially between her generation and her parents’.
“Words seem to lose their meaning when sent digitally. Texting became frustrating; sometimes, it even became a chore. Words are sent, but nothing is communicated. Every attempt at communication seems to end up as miscommunication,” Li said.
“I grew up in a typical East Asian household, with a typical intergenerational tension exacerbated by the biopolitical measurements in the era of the one-child policy. In this new installation, I am shining a light into the shadows of technological ‘progress,’” Li continued.
The title of the exhibition, “Distance of the Moon,” was inspired by a short story from Italian writer Italo Calvino’s book “Cosmicomics,” which provided much comfort to the artist during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Li, who was residing in the manufacturing hub of Yiwu during the breakout of COVID-19 in China, narrowly escaped the city before complete lockdown and headed to Europe to prepare for an exhibition. Li currently lives and works in Berlin and Geneva.
Li’s work first entered the fashion lexicon in 2022 when she created a piece of multimedia artwork for Miu Miu’s spring 2023 runway showcase.
