Palpable Affinities

Event Details

What happens when artists come to feed on surplus materials from an interior design studio?

Palpable Affinities is an exhibition of casual yet spirited installations that explores the curious lives of objects. It presents new works of art co-created by artists Leow Wei Li and Celeste Tan that speculate about an imagined environment where materials, no longer burdened by their assigned functions, can develop new properties and live different lives as sentient matter.

As an exhibition format that cascades into further collaborations both physically and virtually, Palpable Affinities draws from three points of departure: the possibility for a new language to arise from the convergence of art and design; the potential of materials previously marked as surplus or waste—in a state of dispossession—to perform new agency and life as sentient objects; and object biography—an archaeological approach used to trace the story and history of an artefact—as a method of nurturing the narratives of the artworks while they assume different identities, personalities and social relationships.

Against a backdrop of high-speed consumption and commodification, Palpable Affinities presents an opportunity to consider a different, self-reflexive artistic participation.

This exhibition is curated by Tan Rachel and organised in collaboration with multi-disciplinary design studio White Jacket. Navigate the exhibition journey from beyond the gallery, with works by the artists dotting the studio space and creating room for pause, suspension, suggestion.