Isolated Resonance – Shanghai Soho Exhibition
Step inside Xiaohan’s world, where sound is not simply an auditory experience but a sensation that lingers in the body and memory. Flickers of light, delicate movements, and layered images invite us into a space where silence is as alive as any sound. Her work creates a meeting point, a space between hearing and not hearing, where she and the viewer share an intimate dialogue.
One of Xiaohan’s earliest memories is of a hospital room filled with sterile light. She was waiting for a hearing test, her mother’s hands wrapped tightly around her. At four years old, sound became a mystery, a presence just out of reach. Growing up, she learned to navigate a world that often felt distant and overwhelming, developing her own ways of listening. She read lips, watched gestures, and traced vibrations through her body, transforming silence into something rich with possibility.
This way of sensing has shaped her artistic practice. In works like Number, Language & Sound, A Broken Voice, Am I…I am?, and Lights, Lights, Lights, Xiaohan creates installations and moving images that explore sound as something felt rather than heard. Her gestures become marks in images; her delayed responses to conversations echo in flickering projections. These pieces are not attempts to reconstruct sound but invitations to experience its emotional texture.
There is a quiet longing in her practice, and this longing becomes a bridge rather than a barrier. Her work reaches out to audiences who can hear, inviting them to slow down and sense the world differently. Silence, for Xiaohan, is never empty. It vibrates with memory, tension, and intimacy.
Looking ahead, Xiaohan sees her practice not as a fixed trajectory but as an unfolding conversation. Each piece becomes an opening, a way to reflect on how we perceive, connect, and inhabit the spaces between sound and its absence. She asks us to listen with our whole selves and to embrace the unfamiliar as a place of possibility.
