Alvin Li, our Curator, International Art at Tate Modern, is in conversation with Clara Che Wei Peh, our Curator of Programmes at Asymmetry. In this entry of Three Questions, Alvin reflects on the challenges and opportunities of engaging Tate Modern's diverse audiences, the dynamic process behind 'Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee', and his commitment to amplifying alternative histories within institutional frameworks.

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CLARA: I would like to begin with the topic of audiences. As Curator, International Art, supported by Asymmetry at Tate Modern, you work with a remarkably diverse audience that numbers in the millions. What does this mean for you?

ALVIN: The heterogeneity and size of our audience comes with myriad opportunities for contact, as well as its own set of challenges. On one hand, it means that there is always the possibility of introducing something new to someone new, which is incredibly exciting. On the other hand, there is also the risk of a loss in translation—you cannot impress everyone.

About 10 years ago, I worked for an LGBTQ activist organisation in Shanghai for nearly two years. My experience there was marked by an incredible frustration with the constant prioritising of majority interests at the risk of those of fringe queers, so much so that I eventually left to co-found a much smaller-scale platform that spoke more directly to those audiences. This early experience has in no small part informed my work ethos, which could perhaps be summarised as a commitment to thinking from/with/for the peripheries. Whilst being one of the most popular contemporary art museums in the world, Tate Modern has, now more so than ever, grown committed to representing hitherto neglected art histories and narratives. I am so honoured to be part of this momentum.

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C: How does the audience come into play in your recent project ‘Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee’? I am especially curious how you and Mire thought about the audience in relation to the durational design of the installation, which Mire credits to be your input.

A: Mire’s commission takes seriously the considerable length of the exhibition (over 5 months) and explores how it can continue to engage and invite the audience by turning the Hall back into a living factory and a stage, which undergoes weekly maintenance (viewable to public) and monthly additional installs. The idea is to put what usually happens during the closing hours of an exhibition, including maintenance and storage, front of stage. It is about breaking the line between production and performance, illusion and realism, art and life—a Gesamtkunstwerk. I encouraged Mire to pursue continued production and make the on-site maintenance viewable to the public for this project, having noticed how integral these processes are to her work, rather than staging frozen spectacles of post-industrial ruins.

To me, witnessing the production and maintenance could provide the audience with a window to reflect on our collective predicament—the incredible amount of physical and emotional labour required from us to endure ongoing systemic glitches. It is about inviting everyone to experience a moment of eerie solidarity. I believe there is something powerfully emotional and liberating about it.

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C: Your practice has been deeply concerned with creating spaces—on paper, in exhibitions, or otherwise—for alternative histories and positions. How do you continue to craft and uphold these spaces within the institution and for your audiences?

A: Thank you for this beautiful and succinct summary; I’m honoured that you think that about my work. After navigating different cultural contexts as a queer, east Asian migrant for over half of my life, this commitment to uplifting alternative histories and positions is by now so ingrained in my body and thinking, like muscle memory, that I don’t know how else to better situate my practice. I don’t have a clear set of methodologies, although, in recent years, I’ve learned to remind myself that the recognition of my own otherness shouldn’t be an end in itself, but an avenue (an ‘open wound’?) towards other forms of alterities. It is about recognising our non-sovereign relationality.