Two new art exhibitions in Richmond will focus on themes of communication and the various ways to use one's voice.
Richmond Art Gallery (RAG) is kicking off the year with but this is the language we met in; 我们在这个语言中相遇, a solo exhibition, and a group exhibit titled Let the real world in.
Zoe Chan, curator at (RAG), said artist Shen Xin's solo show but this is the language we met in focuses on the various forms of communication, whether it is gestures, verbal, written or digital.
"Shen Xin is interested in language and translation, as it is practiced across cultures, articulated between humans and nature, and expressed by citizens to their governments," said Chan.
Xin's exhibit highlights a "poetic" video connecting their interest in uncovering and understanding language in its "most primal forms" including contemporary languages of prose and protest.
The audio used in the exhibit features snippets of Arabic, English and Mandarin such as excerpts from the Chinese Communist Party's song Solidarity to the People and protest slogans. The exhibit also includes oil paintings on wood.
Meanwhile, Let the real world in is a collaborative exhibit featuring video works by Kirsten Leenaars, Yaimel López Zaldívar, Yoshua Okón and Wapikoni Mobile.
RAG also commissioned 16 screenprints from Zaldívar to showcase Cuban political and cultural poster-making from the 1960s to '80s.
"The artists in Let the real world in present videos in which youth have the agency to express themselves and their perspectives on the world around them," said Chan, adding the world is going through a "time of war, environmental crisis, and socioeconomic inequality."
Both exhibitions, she added, invite visitors to "reflect on their own relationship to these realities" locally and globally.
The exhibitions will run from Jan. 20 to March 31, seven days a week.
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