The Artling Presents "Parallel Universes: Parafacts And Parafictions"

The Artling is pleased to present ‘Parallel Universes: Parafacts and Parafictions’ at Design Republic Commune. The exhibition opens on 10 November 2021 and is timed to coincide with West Bund Art & Design.

Curated by independent curator and former Associate Director of PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai Peipei Han. The exhibition is set within a former colonial building in the Jing’an District, that once served as the Police Headquarters in the 1910s. The 20th-century building was meticulously renovated by Shanghai architect-designers Neri & Hu, retaining a strong emphasis on the relationship between historical and contemporary architecture. The inclusion of contemporary art in this historic venue aims to bridge the three spheres of architecture, art and design, presenting a holistic approach towards how these elements come together.
 

‘Parallel Universes: Parafacts and Parafictions’ will transform the building’s colonial architecture into a platform that stages a heightened experience that brings the community together, exploring the dynamics between different genres and mediums.

The full artist lineup includes Aspartime, Carlos Sebastia and Jane Pickersgill, Ce Jian, Chen Xiaoyi, Chen Zhe, Gao Lei, Hu Weiyi, Joey Xia, John Monteith, Li Jinghu, Li Tao, Pu Yingwei, Ren Bo, Yang Guangnan and Zhang Miao.
 

In understanding and reinterpreting the world around us, the participating artists present their visions through fictional readings of reality. The fine line that defines reality and fiction is ever more blurred. This confusion provides opportunities to critically examine the actual world and reconsider the potential of our present experience. This exhibition also questions – within our own narrow sense of what we deem real or unreal – the existence of other realities that allow for very different possibilities to exist. Fiction in one world may be a reality in another.
 

These alternative realities project mirroring dimensions in a multitude of parallel universes, formed by the overlapping of fiction and fact, constituted in ‘parafacts’ and ‘parafictions’. A parafact stringently draws from reality, but a reality that contains a narrative so curious, exquisite, or implausible that it calls into question its own veracity. In parafiction, real or imaginary stories intersect with the world as it is being lived; fiction is experienced as fact.
 

In this exhibition, the works by the 15 artists have all either directly or indirectly synthesised their view of reality with fabulation and figment or vice versa, moulding fantasies to appear as realistic scenes. The artists create their own parallel world for the viewers to observe and explore another dimension, getting lost in the sense of parafacts and parafictions. Each artist’s work is a thread woven into the multi-layered and intricately interconnected system of parallel universes that exist beyond what surrounds us each day.
 

About the Curator

Peipei Han is an independent curator and the former Associate Director of PHOTOFAIRS. She has previously curated design exhibitions in her home city of Beijing and in recent years, also a wide range of art exhibitions in Shanghai. She has also written various articles on the subject of contemporary art for international publications. She completed her MA from the University of the Arts, London in Media, Communication and Critical Practice. Ms. Han joined the Shanghai edition of PHOTOFAIRS in 2015 and has been instrumental in positioning the fair as the leading platform for contemporary photography and moving image in the Asia Pacific region.

Exhibition Dates: 10 November 2021 - 9 January 2022
Address: Design Republic, 3rd Fl, 511 Jiangning Road, Jing'an District, Shanghai
Opening Times: Monday - Sunday, 10:00 - 19:00

To view the full collection, click here. For inquiries, you may reach Terry via email at Terry@theartling.com, or on wechat at Tedterry.