Chamber simultaneously embodies a collection, mausoleum and sanctuary, reminding the viewer that the body is the locus of physical suffering. It evokes the early modernist artworks that use the fractured body as a metaphor for human alienation and social disjuncture. For the more affluent societies of the West, suffering is often largely confined to what is revealed to us by the media, with the dismembered bodies of overseas tragedies becoming dehumanised through their anonymity.

The delicate paper and wax replicas of the artist’s fragmented face recall both the ancient conviction that the replica of the human body is mysteriously significant and the Freudian position that it is a reminder of death. The multiple reproductions of the face elicit both the artist’s (and by extension the viewers') mortality. Chamber seeks to be both a clinical and theatrical space, within which the audience is able to consider the dismembered body and all its associations.

Chamber exhibition statement

Photography by Yang-En Hume.