Curated by Sam I-shan

Under One Moon is a site-specific exhibition of moving images, sound, light, photographs and text. The works are inspired by Sissi Kaplan’s artist book, 77 Days: An Experience Report, a story of enforced isolation and personal loss that took place during the global pandemic of 2020. Fear of mortal contagion kept people apart as national borders started to close. Having lived abroad for decades, questions of separation and absence became even more acute for the artist. She turned to reverie, invention and performance to make meaning of these new circumstances. These creative acts became a way to practise resilience, and represent individual experience and emotion amidst collective adversity. Now souvenirs of a particular moment in worldwide history, these works are also considerations about what it means to be in the world and to interact with others.

The six video works in this exhibition are encountered in darkness, over thresholds and through portals. A moon gate leads the way toward Under One Moon, an ascending passageway bridges Dance With Me and Sissi (On a Staircase), a door ajar reveals Circling Around, I Am Still Here is viewed under and over an entrance void, and an Eclipse floats untethered. Made from textured layers of digital video, photography, and super-8 footage from family and found archives, each video suggests different chapters of a narrative. They evoke the fleeting asynchronicity of real life, but are connected by moments of shared imagery, and united by the music and sound compositions of Vivian Wang. Seen together, they reveal various facets of temporality: the ghosts of memory, the contingent past, the ache of the present, the speculative future, and an infinite cosmos.

The book 77 Days: An Experience Report will be launched during the opening, and is part of the exhibition. It will be available for purchase from the gallery for the duration of the show, and from the artist’s website and selected distributors thereafter.