MadeIn Gallery is pleased to present Shen Xin’s solo exhibition “one, arriving at floodplains” on November 6, 2023. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition at MadeIn Gallery after “To Satiate” in 2019. The exhibition will feature video installations and book based works that are revealing of the artist’s latest practice. Shen practices languages of returning, where one imagines, articulates and creates unhurt spaces of belonging through songs and stories. Their engagement with moving image, video installation, performance, painting and collective processes are held in reciprocity of relations, and the depth of the polyphonic. Active commitments are placed in the learning and practicing with land-based patterns of thoughts and actions, while bearing witness to forms of governance.

Arriving at floodplains, one ceases the arming of internal and external narratives, and sees oneself as part of the story, this is the knowing that co-exists with the exhibition. The space metaphorises the river as the observation and accounting of complex systems, and the floodplains as the potentials and changes embedded within coming into knowing. Brine Lake (A New Body) (2020) forms around the extraction and deployment of identities and resources. The five channel video and sound installation holds itself to the context of witnessing, and tells stories of stateless people within bounds of demarcated nations and East Asian geographies through Korean, Japanese and Russian. In learning to be with living kins, the two channel moving image work New Light (2022) takes the potential of looking as listening. Clarity is Here (2022) is created with the seasons portrayed through theatre lights in ས་གཞི་སྔོན་པོ་འགྱུར། (The Earth Turned Green) . It becomes light sources through the the bark of daphne shrubs. Here, seasons are constructed into multiple phases through collective knowledge, and act as bearers for readable presentations.

In three book based works, 1, 2, 3, 4 listens to the patterns that resonate with trans-generational trauma amongst kins through relationships between humans and lands; To Bind, Embed, Shimmer, and Brace comes from a forming of collective due to the challenges facing the experiences and emotions of homes — 楔xiē (Hao Jingban, Qu Chang, Shen Xin, Yunyu “Ayo” Shih), and the knowledge that grows in between each others; Winde #1 consists of poems and paintings born out of land based practices between life partners (Ali Van and Shen Xin). arriving at floodplains is a metaphor that needs to return to circulation. Amidst the potentials and limitations presented by kins and soil, seeds and agreements, levees and dams, cities and wetlands, one commits to where one is situated, to nurture with existing threads and to build with possible relations.

Brine Lake (A New Body) is supported by Rijksakademie Amsterdam, DeAppel Amsterdam, M+ Museum Hong Kong and Gwangju Biennale, South Korea.
New Light is commissioned by Macalline Art Center, Beijing.
Clarity is Here is supported by Swiss Institute New York, and made in conjunction with the exhibition “ས་གཞི་སྔོན་པོ་འགྱུར། (The Earth Turned Green)”, May 04 – Aug 28 2022, Swiss Institute, New York.
1, 2, 3, 4 is published by Wild Seeds, Vienna, supported by The Next Step Fund from the McKnight Foundation, Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, and Friends of KUNSTVEREIN GARTENHAUS. It was made in conjunction with the exhibition “ས་གཞི་སྔོན་པོ་འགྱུར། (The Earth Turned Green)”, Mar 31 – Jun 17 2023, KUNSTVEREIN GARTENHAUS, Vienna.
To Bind, Embed, Shimmer, and Brace is published and supported by daad galerie, Berlin, and made in conjunction with the exhibition 楔 XIĒ: 連接，嵌入，反射，承托 TO BIND, EMBED, SHIMMER, AND BRACE, Oct 21 – Dec 18, 2022, daad galerie, Berlin.
Winde #1 is supported by MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai.