Tracing... ... ...
Curated by Seoyoung Kim
with works by Eun Lee, Janette Oh, and Basharat Ali Syed
The Blanc x Li Tang Community Community Independent Curatorial Project
May 10 - 30, 2025
Shaped by movement, history, and shifting environments, Tracing… … … brings together artists Eun Lee, Janette Oh, and Basharat Ali Syed, whose works explore the ephemeral nature of presence, migration, and transformation. Through their interdisciplinary practices, they navigate the fluid bonds between past and present, self and other, investigating how identity is formed and reshaped by both inherited traditions and changing surroundings. Their collective exploration of these themes underscores the deeply personal and universal experiences of displacement and belonging.
Central to their work is the concept of lineation––both as a physical mark and a metaphor for movement, serving as a bridge between fragmented histories and lived experiences. The artists reflect on the ways in which environments shape identity, memory, and the connections that bind us to our place and one another. Their practices highlight the tension between permanence and transience, offering a visual language for the negotiation of belonging and displacement. This delicate balance between structures and fluidity mirrors the artists’ own experiences of migration and transformation.
Eun Lee’s Go! fills and transform the room, allowing the presence of the space to shift and expand through modifying a stack of Hwatu (화투; 花鬪; flower battle) cards he brought along from his home in Korea, drawn to the connection between what was once there and what is now. With interest in how spiritual energy and history endure in a location, passed down through generations and cycles of new occupants, Lee creates marks and energies––such as family and friends’ platform interactions with the cards––carried along with the stack.
Janette Oh weaves, ties, loosens, and wraps textiles around structures, evoking the ephemeral yet ever-present nature of objects and memories. Oasis blurs the line between the fragile temporality of human experience and the permanence of presence, capturing the tensions between what is fleeting and what endures.
Basharat Ali Syed reflects on his home in Kashmir, India, continuously contemplating existence through the lens of duality. The coexistence of control and liberation, tranquility and tensions, is woven into his interdisciplinary installations playing with the fragile material nature of the fabrics and its traditional ties in contrast with the harshness of ragged structures and simple bowl of water, embodying the tension between tradition and modernity. His pieces explore the relationship between old languages and new media, juxtaposing traditional fabrics with contemporary fabrications of cultural objects. This aesthetic engagement fosters empathy, vulnerability, drawing parallels in investigating the remnants of memory in cultures of oppression and evoking ironic dichotomies between reverence and violence.
Tracing… … … invites us to consider how cultural identities are inscribed onto space and how bonds endure across distances, re-defining migration beyond a physical movement, but as an ongoing negotiation of history, memory, and selfhood. It speaks to the ways in which individuals carve their existence into landscapes, emphasizing that the act of leaving a mark is as much about honoring the past as it is about negotiating an ever-changing future.
Tracing… … … serves as a meditation on the spiritual and universal connections that link individuals to their surroundings, across time, borders, and geographies. The exhibition challenges us to reflect on the essence that lingers beyond what is seen––the invisible threads of memory, history, and shared humanity that shape our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world.
Curated by Seoyoung Kim
with works by Eun Lee, Janette Oh, and Basharat Ali Syed
The Blanc x Li Tang Community Community Independent Curatorial Project
May 10 - 30, 2025
Shaped by movement, history, and shifting environments, Tracing… … … brings together artists Eun Lee, Janette Oh, and Basharat Ali Syed, whose works explore the ephemeral nature of presence, migration, and transformation. Through their interdisciplinary practices, they navigate the fluid bonds between past and present, self and other, investigating how identity is formed and reshaped by both inherited traditions and changing surroundings. Their collective exploration of these themes underscores the deeply personal and universal experiences of displacement and belonging.
Central to their work is the concept of lineation––both as a physical mark and a metaphor for movement, serving as a bridge between fragmented histories and lived experiences. The artists reflect on the ways in which environments shape identity, memory, and the connections that bind us to our place and one another. Their practices highlight the tension between permanence and transience, offering a visual language for the negotiation of belonging and displacement. This delicate balance between structures and fluidity mirrors the artists’ own experiences of migration and transformation.
Eun Lee’s Go! fills and transform the room, allowing the presence of the space to shift and expand through modifying a stack of Hwatu (화투; 花鬪; flower battle) cards he brought along from his home in Korea, drawn to the connection between what was once there and what is now. With interest in how spiritual energy and history endure in a location, passed down through generations and cycles of new occupants, Lee creates marks and energies––such as family and friends’ platform interactions with the cards––carried along with the stack.
Janette Oh weaves, ties, loosens, and wraps textiles around structures, evoking the ephemeral yet ever-present nature of objects and memories. Oasis blurs the line between the fragile temporality of human experience and the permanence of presence, capturing the tensions between what is fleeting and what endures.
Basharat Ali Syed reflects on his home in Kashmir, India, continuously contemplating existence through the lens of duality. The coexistence of control and liberation, tranquility and tensions, is woven into his interdisciplinary installations playing with the fragile material nature of the fabrics and its traditional ties in contrast with the harshness of ragged structures and simple bowl of water, embodying the tension between tradition and modernity. His pieces explore the relationship between old languages and new media, juxtaposing traditional fabrics with contemporary fabrications of cultural objects. This aesthetic engagement fosters empathy, vulnerability, drawing parallels in investigating the remnants of memory in cultures of oppression and evoking ironic dichotomies between reverence and violence.
Tracing… … … invites us to consider how cultural identities are inscribed onto space and how bonds endure across distances, re-defining migration beyond a physical movement, but as an ongoing negotiation of history, memory, and selfhood. It speaks to the ways in which individuals carve their existence into landscapes, emphasizing that the act of leaving a mark is as much about honoring the past as it is about negotiating an ever-changing future.
Tracing… … … serves as a meditation on the spiritual and universal connections that link individuals to their surroundings, across time, borders, and geographies. The exhibition challenges us to reflect on the essence that lingers beyond what is seen––the invisible threads of memory, history, and shared humanity that shape our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world.
