Hear the Light brings together works by artists Chibuzor Adiele, Anat Ben-David, Simnikiwe Buhlungu and Chen Zhe to explore ‘awakening’ as a concept and metaphor capable of introducing new possibilities and raising awareness, restructuring our futures while shaping brighter, challenging presents. Starting from the conviction that the Internet is a luxury, the exhibition is an invitation to think together about our present moment, which is full of inheritances, repetitions and comings, while questioning the notion of accessibility.
With 2021 as a backdrop, Hear the Light is also an experiment in thinking about the question of connectivity. Are we really all online? In a world of unreliable or slow connections the only way to ensure that information is readily available to semi-connected or disconnected audiences is through the distribution of a physical copy. Alongside the idea of the USB as an offline copy of the exhibition, there is the USB as an artefact, allowing audiences to revisit the exhibition again at different times and places.
Hear the Light is curated by Ludovica Bulciolu, David Lisbon, Kechun Qin, Hyeona Shin, Haoyang Wang, Shiying Wang and Duruo Zheng as part of the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2021, Royal College of Art in partnership with Gasworks.
Image Caption: Windows, 2021, Yixuan Xu
