HARTslane Gallery, New Cross, London
Words by Curator Lisha Duan
When the dominant narrative fails to carry the weight of those unique lived experiences, fragmented identities, or interior states, can those unspeakable, marginalised, and anomalous experiences still be expressed, witnessed, and co-exist with others?
Presented at HARTslane Gallery in New Cross from 22 – 25 September, 2025, Neither/Nor/And Both brings together four Asian female artists – Chengyu Yao, Doudou Wang, Soo Hyun Lee, and Xiya Wang, who face intersectional pressures from the dominant discourse and established frameworks. Curated by Lisha Duan, the exhibition explores how identity is continuously negotiated, absorbed, or resisted within those tensions.
In this exhibition, the self and external cultural spaces are never parallel lines but intertwined forces that transform one another. Through personal narratives and embodied practices, the artists examine the asymmetry between the body and society, emotion and structure, in which some voices are amplified while others remain deliberately muted. Their practices condense collective anxiety and personal desire into a non-verbal yet powerful expression. Facing the intersectional pressures from the dominant discourse, territorial traditions and disciplines. Each of their expressions continuously expands the boundaries of interpersonal and intercultural understanding, reflecting a third perspective shaped by contradiction, resistance, and reformation.
Emerging from the statement “I am here, but not just here,” they resist being confined by singular definitions, instead creating fluid zones of becoming and encounter. Doudou Wang’s painting unfolds as a resistant gesture against external discipline, revealing an eruption of emotion and an act of refusal. Chengyu Yao’s vivid response to the White Paper Movement, which centred on protests on Urumqi Road in Shanghai, conveys an empathetic connection between individual emotion and collective trauma. Xiya Wang revisits Chinese paper effigy traditions to reflect on diasporic mourning and the friction between inherited ritual and displaced identity. Soo Hyun Lee’s video work exposes the gap between expression and comprehension — between self-understanding and others’ perception — where language becomes both bridge and barrier.
Together, these works form an open, evolving dialogue on selfhood, vulnerability, and the space in-between where contradiction itself becomes a mode of creation and understanding.
Exhibition Details:
Title: Neither/Nor/And Both
Dates: 22 September – 25 September, 2025
Location: HARTslane Gallery, 17 Harts Lane, London, SE14 5UP
Participating Artist: Chengyu Yao, Doudou Wang, Soo Hyun Lee, Xiya Wang
Curator: Lisha Duan
