The legacies of queerness and horror films are insatiably intertwined. In her newly commissioned performance for Art Central 2025, IV Chan draws inspiration from the campy formalism of B-movies, particularly within the genre of horror comedy, to explore its grotesquerie while reflecting on the figures of vampire and motherhood in the Chinese cinematic landscape.

If we gaze at the landscape long enough, will it share its secrets with us in return? What has it seen that we have not? Perhaps the wind carries echoes of lost voices, or the river holds reflections of forgotten journeys. Perhaps the trees whisper stories that only those who listen closely can hear.

In the lecture performance The Landscape Between Us II (2022), artist Xiaoshi Qin will share stories of folklore and history from the Pearl River estuary through her personal encounters with the land. For years, she has wandered through these shifting terrains, listening to the silent imprints of time. As part of her artistic practice, she has developed a ritual of hiding objects—crafted from her imagination and inspired by collected stories—within the mountains and rivers and forgotten corners of the region. These objects, concealed yet present, form a quiet dialogue between the artist and the landscape.

During her journeys, the artist has uncovered traces of South China’s pirate history, local stories scribbled on the crumbling walls of village temples, and poems left behind by sailors in abandoned pavilions. Each encounter, whether an artifact, a voice, or a shadow, weaves together a tapestry of memory and myth. Through sound, objects, and images, the artist blurs the line between fiction and reality. In doing so, the landscape itself becomes a storyteller, revealing the quiet, untold narratives of the Pearl River Delta.

If we gaze at the landscape long enough, will it share its secrets with us in return? What has it seen that we have not? Perhaps the wind carries echoes of lost voices, or the river holds reflections of forgotten journeys. Perhaps the trees whisper stories that only those who listen closely can hear.

In the lecture performance The Landscape Between Us II (2022), artist Xiaoshi Qin will share stories of folklore and history from the Pearl River estuary through her personal encounters with the land. For years, she has wandered through these shifting terrains, listening to the silent imprints of time. As part of her artistic practice, she has developed a ritual of hiding objects—crafted from her imagination and inspired by collected stories—within the mountains and rivers and forgotten corners of the region. These objects, concealed yet present, form a quiet dialogue between the artist and the landscape.

During her journeys, the artist has uncovered traces of South China’s pirate history, local stories scribbled on the crumbling walls of village temples, and poems left behind by sailors in abandoned pavilions. Each encounter, whether an artifact, a voice, or a shadow, weaves together a tapestry of memory and myth. Through sound, objects, and images, the artist blurs the line between fiction and reality. In doing so, the landscape itself becomes a storyteller, revealing the quiet, untold narratives of the Pearl River Delta.

If we gaze at the landscape long enough, will it share its secrets with us in return? What has it seen that we have not? Perhaps the wind carries echoes of lost voices, or the river holds reflections of forgotten journeys. Perhaps the trees whisper stories that only those who listen closely can hear.

In the lecture performance The Landscape Between Us II (2022), artist Xiaoshi Qin will share stories of folklore and history from the Pearl River estuary through her personal encounters with the land. For years, she has wandered through these shifting terrains, listening to the silent imprints of time. As part of her artistic practice, she has developed a ritual of hiding objects—crafted from her imagination and inspired by collected stories—within the mountains and rivers and forgotten corners of the region. These objects, concealed yet present, form a quiet dialogue between the artist and the landscape.

During her journeys, the artist has uncovered traces of South China’s pirate history, local stories scribbled on the crumbling walls of village temples, and poems left behind by sailors in abandoned pavilions. Each encounter, whether an artifact, a voice, or a shadow, weaves together a tapestry of memory and myth. Through sound, objects, and images, the artist blurs the line between fiction and reality. In doing so, the landscape itself becomes a storyteller, revealing the quiet, untold narratives of the Pearl River Delta.

If we gaze at the landscape long enough, will it share its secrets with us in return? What has it seen that we have not? Perhaps the wind carries echoes of lost voices, or the river holds reflections of forgotten journeys. Perhaps the trees whisper stories that only those who listen closely can hear.

In the lecture performance The Landscape Between Us II (2022), artist Xiaoshi Qin will share stories of folklore and history from the Pearl River estuary through her personal encounters with the land. For years, she has wandered through these shifting terrains, listening to the silent imprints of time. As part of her artistic practice, she has developed a ritual of hiding objects—crafted from her imagination and inspired by collected stories—within the mountains and rivers and forgotten corners of the region. These objects, concealed yet present, form a quiet dialogue between the artist and the landscape.

During her journeys, the artist has uncovered traces of South China’s pirate history, local stories scribbled on the crumbling walls of village temples, and poems left behind by sailors in abandoned pavilions. Each encounter, whether an artifact, a voice, or a shadow, weaves together a tapestry of memory and myth. Through sound, objects, and images, the artist blurs the line between fiction and reality. In doing so, the landscape itself becomes a storyteller, revealing the quiet, untold narratives of the Pearl River Delta.

Charmaine Poh, with Viola Grief and Florence Lam.

in the shadow of the cosmic (2023) is a performance-lecture exploring the multiplicity of the avatar. Expanding Poh’s YOUNG BODY series, the character E-Ching is placed in conversation with vocal clones, anime characters, 3D influencers, and other entities in a vast digital constellation. The performance-lecture traces a technological lineage from the East Asian economic miracle of the 1980s and ’90s and the emergence of techno-orientalism, positing that the digital image of the East Asian femme body was borne at a confluence of these historical flows. Pertinent to the work is the recursive logic of Daoism, in which image, self and cosmology reverberate in endless loops. Combining video, live performance and sound, in the shadow of the cosmic is a call to re-open questions of being and becoming.

Charmaine Poh, with Viola Grief and Florence Lam.

in the shadow of the cosmic (2023) is a performance-lecture exploring the multiplicity of the avatar. Expanding Poh’s YOUNG BODY series, the character E-Ching is placed in conversation with vocal clones, anime characters, 3D influencers, and other entities in a vast digital constellation. The performance-lecture traces a technological lineage from the East Asian economic miracle of the 1980s and ’90s and the emergence of techno-orientalism, positing that the digital image of the East Asian femme body was borne at a confluence of these historical flows. Pertinent to the work is the recursive logic of Daoism, in which image, self and cosmology reverberate in endless loops. Combining video, live performance and sound, in the shadow of the cosmic is a call to re-open questions of being and becoming.

Charmaine Poh, with Viola Grief and Florence Lam.

in the shadow of the cosmic (2023) is a performance-lecture exploring the multiplicity of the avatar. Expanding Poh’s YOUNG BODY series, the character E-Ching is placed in conversation with vocal clones, anime characters, 3D influencers, and other entities in a vast digital constellation. The performance-lecture traces a technological lineage from the East Asian economic miracle of the 1980s and ’90s and the emergence of techno-orientalism, positing that the digital image of the East Asian femme body was borne at a confluence of these historical flows. Pertinent to the work is the recursive logic of Daoism, in which image, self and cosmology reverberate in endless loops. Combining video, live performance and sound, in the shadow of the cosmic is a call to re-open questions of being and becoming.

Charmaine Poh, with Viola Grief and Florence Lam.

in the shadow of the cosmic (2023) is a performance-lecture exploring the multiplicity of the avatar. Expanding Poh’s YOUNG BODY series, the character E-Ching is placed in conversation with vocal clones, anime characters, 3D influencers, and other entities in a vast digital constellation. The performance-lecture traces a technological lineage from the East Asian economic miracle of the 1980s and ’90s and the emergence of techno-orientalism, positing that the digital image of the East Asian femme body was borne at a confluence of these historical flows. Pertinent to the work is the recursive logic of Daoism, in which image, self and cosmology reverberate in endless loops. Combining video, live performance and sound, in the shadow of the cosmic is a call to re-open questions of being and becoming.