Drifting Timelines 流动时序
@ Cochrane Woods Art Center
5540 S Greenwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60637
Opening Friday, May 2nd, from 3PM - 4:30PM
On view through Saturday, June 7th
We often discuss the past as if the memories, tradition, and history within it should be permanently suspended in a singular state. However, the artists featured in Drifting Timelines 流动时序—Fengzee Yang, Xuanlin Ye, and Hai-Wen Lin—reject this notion of fixity. They use their artwork as a space to reach back into the past, bridging it with their present experiences or using it to gesture toward the future. All three, based in Chicago, draw on their experiences as members of the East Asian diaspora, grappling with feelings of separation from an idealized, standardized version of origin that does not truly exist. Embracing ambiguity, their work is informed by a willingness to live in the in-between.
The exhibition offers a form of time-travel in which viewers drift from Yang’s fossil-like sculptures, imbued with gentle nostalgia, to Ye’s lushly colored paintings that blend popular and classical imagery. This progression shifts our focus from the individual to the collective and culminates in Lin’s multi-kite installation rising into the sky, guiding our gaze upward and inviting us to explore realities unbound by any single moment or consciousness.
In the current political and environmental climate—where it can feel like our future is narrowing to a single grim outcome—these works encourage a multiplicity of identity and experience. Their focus on in-between spaces generates longing, offers hope, and inspires resistance. In this way, Drifting Timelines 流动时序 shows that engaging with multiple temporalities not only deepens our understanding of the past and present, but also inspires us to shape a more open and hopeful future.
Official Website
More events on this date
Tags: Chicago, Cochrane Woods Art Center, Diasporic Art, Drifting Timelines, East Asian Art, Fengzee Yang, Hai-Wen Lin, Hyde Park, Xuanlin Ye, 流动时序
« previous event
next event »