A two artist show presents a Chinese and a Korean female artists that explore concepts of identity through their artistic work. This exhibition also continues the topic of our last group exhibition of female artists，“ A future without a past”.  

Subtlety and sensitivity are the characteristics of female artists, and expression through painting and embroidery has not stopped in contemporary art. Through the recent works of the two Chinese and Korean artists, we hope to revisit the practice of fabric, thread and traditional media and subject matter to produce contemporary expression and interpretation.

Taking a step back from the ordinary, the show invites its viewers to nurture a critical view of what brings our traditional experience into art and how to continue this experience in the contemporary creation. In an attempt to further the examination, the exhibition help the viewer to focus on questions about female identity and on what terms it is of compelling importance in today’s world.

Once the practical and daily roles we assume are laid aside, the unmistakable common ground is left to be here and now. Time and space are our lifelong companions, whether we have them in minute capacity and share only a small portion of them with others, or whether we reside comfortably and inattentively enveloped in them. Yet the nexus of time and space also comprises an intersectionality of nation, community, faith and social status generating a universal condition of what it is to be human. We discover the unique circumstances of our existence on both sides of an artwork as beholders, as well as the makers and the artists of it. As we become conscious of our personal stance to these conditions, we also find ourselves entangled with the past, the present and the future. How we accept and relate to this dynamic and on what terms we confront and question its reality is a task, if not always apparent, widely implicated in our actions.

In search of identity, like a future without a past, the work is unfinished without the awareness of what bridges gaps or separates us in a world of ever complicated global connectedness. The task at hand is to determine our roots，to develop an understanding of our inheritance and to acknowledge the ways we build upon it. Migrant Bird Space’s upcoming show deals with these explorations and self-questioning with the premise that we can’t build a future without a past. Our two artists accompany us with their artistic endeavours to expand the investigation and direct it towards a progressive approach, in an era where identity politics is at the foreground of global discussions.

Drifting Stitches - Handout.pdf