Nite Art Art across Melbourne
Siying Zhou
Hair caught in Kangaroo Paw is an installation work consisting of digital photographs, videos and small sculptures. Displayed inside four separate glass cabinets at Loophole gallery in Loop bar, the exhibition constructs four implicit scenarios depicting Australian encounters from a foreigner’s perspective.
In this body of works, the dialectic relationship between the notion of self and of the other is framed in the negotiation between the migrants and the foreign land of Australia. By showing the landscape images of the Australian bush, the subtle movements in a still-life and the transformed quotidian objects, the exhibition tends to map out a temporarily fixed position for a female Asian immigrant in the continuously evolving identity of Australia.
“Landscapes can be deceptive. Sometimes a landscape seems to be less a setting for the life of its inhabitants than a curtain behind which their struggles, achievements and accidents take place.” John Berger. A fortunate Man, The Story of a Country Doctor.
Born in China, Siying Zhou is an interdisciplinary artist. Her work is predominantly presented in the format of installation. Using various physical arrangements of objects and images, Zhou contextualises the subjectivity of her works and creates a unique aesthetic. Zhou’s artwork reflects her thoughts and contemplation on interconnected subjects, such as the religious practice and cultural traditions in the life of the nomad, identity of individuals within the culture of globalisation, the intricate relationship between the land and its dwellers and the correlation of physical and imaginary spaces. Recently, she has been undertaking research in the unfixed social-cultural identity of migrants.
Zhou has participated in residencies in Barcelona and Berlin. She has received the John and Mary Kerley International Travel Scholarship 2016 and the National Gallery of Victoria Women’s Association Award at the graduation of Master of Contemporary Art at Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), The University of Melbourne in 2015. Zhou is currently a candidate for Master of Fine Art at VCA.