Installation View of with/drawing rooms Exhibition

Statement

with/drawing rooms probes the paradox at the heart of human connection, echoing Kierkegaard's words that we inevitably crave companionship, yet our innermost emotions remain private. In today's hyperconnected world, we seek solace in art, music, and literature that soothe our yearnings for intimacy, yet our expressions often mask as much as they reveal.

Nocturnes, originally conceived in the Romantic era, were composed to capture our yearning for self-expression amidst isolation. They were first performed in drawing rooms, intimate and ostentatious spaces designed for contemplation and relaxation. Within this refined space, the compositions illuminated the beauty of inwardness, or in Hegel’s term "die Innigkeit," that distinguishes subjective experience from objective reality. Similar to nocturnes, our social media expressions crave an audience, yet the question remains: how well are we truly understood? To what extent do our personas obscure the self? This work explores the dilemmas of intimacy in a modern hypermediated world, through art installations, performances, and reflections.

Drawing inspiration from nocturne music, the project adopts a multidisciplinary approach by inviting artists and scholars from various fields, including music, visual arts, to interpret and express their perspectives on the complexities of human emotions and experiences in today's society, creating each of their own unique “nocturne” in various mediums.

In Baudrillard's words, we inhabit simulations that both attract and repel the outer world. Living within our "drawing rooms" becomes a quest to discover the beauty of inwardness - a dilemma ever more relevant. The work probes this paradox, a journey through indescribable feelings that the artist and audience share. It reveals that what truly unites us transcends linguistic expressions, lying in the mutual acknowledgment of inner worlds that remain, inexplicably, private yet yearning for intersubjective understanding. with/drawing rooms becomes an exercise in inhabiting the fluidity of selfhood amidst a desire for community. To paraphrase Peter Gay, it is “a vast exercise of shared solitude.”