Drifting Timelines 流动时序

Exhibition

2 May 2025 8.30am - 7 June 2025 5.00pm

Cochrane-Woods Art Center, 1st floor

Add to Calendar 2025-05-02 08:30:00 2025-06-07 17:00:00 Drifting Timelines 流动时序 We often discuss the past as if the memories, tradition, and history within it should be permanently suspended in a singular state. However, the artists featured in Drifting Timelines 流动时序—Fengzee Yang, Xuanlin Ye, and Hai-Wen Lin—reject this notion of fixity. They use their artwork as a space to reach back into the past, bridging it with their present experiences or using it to gesture toward the future. All three, based in Chicago, draw on their experiences as members of the East Asian diaspora, grappling with feelings of separation from an idealized, standardized version of origin that does not truly exist. Embracing ambiguity, their work is informed by a willingness to live in the in-between. The exhibition offers a form of time-travel in which viewers drift from Yang’s fossil-like sculptures, imbued with gentle nostalgia, to Ye’s lushly colored paintings that blend popular and classical imagery. This progression shifts our focus from the individual to the collective and culminates in Lin’s multi-kite installation rising into the sky, guiding our gaze upward and inviting us to explore realities unbound by any single moment or consciousness. In the current political and environmental climate—where it can feel like our future is narrowing to a single grim outcome—these works encourage a multiplicity of identity and experience. Their focus on in-between spaces generates longing, offers hope, and inspires resistance. In this way, Drifting Timelines 流动时序 shows that engaging with multiple temporalities not only deepens our understanding of the past and present, but also inspires us to shape a more open and hopeful future. Curator Drifting Timelines 流动时序 is curated by Haemin Kim, AB’25 Artists Drifting Timelines 流动时序 features works by Fengzee Yang, Xuanlin Ye, and Hai-Wen Lin. Support This exhibition is generously supported by the Department of Art History, the Center for the Art of East Asia, and the Curricular Innovation Fund for Undergraduate Research at the University of Chicago. Installation support and preparation provided by the curator, artists, Anju Lukose-Scott, Yutao Qian, and Ruoxuan Yuan. Related Programming Opening Reception for Drifting Timelines 流动时序 and Go Calmly Across This Room: In Memory, May 2, 2025 Maverick Practices in Asian Art: Artists, Curators, and Scholars Breaching the Boundaries, May 2–3, 2025 Between Here and There: An Artist Talk on Diasporic Art and Time, May 14, 2025 at 5pm in CWAC 156 Accessibility CWAC Exhibitions is committed to accessibility for all our exhibitions. To request an accommodation or alternative format, please email visualresources@uchicago.edu. Cochrane-Woods Art Center, 1st floor Department of Art History drupal@seastar.uchicago.edu America/Chicago public

An exhibition examining diasporic identity and historical connections through work by Chicago-based artists Hai-Wen Lin, Xuanlin Ye, and Fengzee Yang.

We often discuss the past as if the memories, tradition, and history within it should be permanently suspended in a singular state. However, the artists featured in Drifting Timelines 流动时序—Fengzee Yang, Xuanlin Ye, and Hai-Wen Lin—reject this notion of fixity. They use their artwork as a space to reach back into the past, bridging it with their present experiences or using it to gesture toward the future. All three, based in Chicago, draw on their experiences as members of the East Asian diaspora, grappling with feelings of separation from an idealized, standardized version of origin that does not truly exist. Embracing ambiguity, their work is informed by a willingness to live in the in-between.

The exhibition offers a form of time-travel in which viewers drift from Yang’s fossil-like sculptures, imbued with gentle nostalgia, to Ye’s lushly colored paintings that blend popular and classical imagery. This progression shifts our focus from the individual to the collective and culminates in Lin’s multi-kite installation rising into the sky, guiding our gaze upward and inviting us to explore realities unbound by any single moment or consciousness.

In the current political and environmental climate—where it can feel like our future is narrowing to a single grim outcome—these works encourage a multiplicity of identity and experience. Their focus on in-between spaces generates longing, offers hope, and inspires resistance. In this way, Drifting Timelines 流动时序 shows that engaging with multiple temporalities not only deepens our understanding of the past and present, but also inspires us to shape a more open and hopeful future.

Curator
Drifting Timelines 流动时序 is curated by Haemin Kim, AB’25

Artists
Drifting Timelines 流动时序 features works by Fengzee Yang, Xuanlin Ye, and Hai-Wen Lin.

Support
This exhibition is generously supported by the Department of Art History, the Center for the Art of East Asia, and the Curricular Innovation Fund for Undergraduate Research at the University of Chicago. Installation support and preparation provided by the curator, artists, Anju Lukose-Scott, Yutao Qian, and Ruoxuan Yuan.

Accessibility
CWAC Exhibitions is committed to accessibility for all our exhibitions. To request an accommodation or alternative format, please email visualresources@uchicago.edu.