Librarians-in-Residence: Public Programming
FAN の BLOG 迷妹の部屋
Chaney Diao, Yasmine Anlan Huang, Bart Seng Wen Long, Ruini Shi, and Ye Funa
Asymmetry, 102a Albion Drive, London E8 4LY
6-9PM, 26.07.2024
We are excited to present 'Fanのblog 迷妹の部屋', the final public programme in Ye Funa’s four-month library residency. In this concluding chapter to ‘Get Low, Like Bumpkin Cannon’ (土炮之书), Ye and her collaborators dive into the formation of subculture, fandom, and the pursuit and formation of new identities.
Conceived as a four-part fan blog, the programme will feature four performance presentations by artist and writer Yasmine Anlan Huang, artist-filmmaker Bart Seng Wen Long, animation director Ruini Shi, and Ye herself. After, they will join a panel discussion to ‘confess’ how they’ve found themselves lost in the passion of ‘mi迷’ (being a fan), and discuss the origin and intersections of fandom subcultures.
The evening will be accompanied by music specially selected by DJ and multimedia artist Chaney Diao. Join us for a casual summer drink after!
Dear Art Lover,
Have you ever felt a dreamy, gem-like emotion that envelops you in its soft warm glow? Welcome to 'Fanのblog 迷妹の部屋,' a panel of four performance presentations, where we explore the mystical feelings of fandom subcultures in four unique ‘blog posts’. Step into the affective dimensions of adoration, devotion, and vulnerability, and experience what it means to be lost in passion and become utterly obsessed with something — an idol, a character, a song, an object, or just about anything. Marking our last invitation to you, we promise this journey will be surprising, confusing, and oh-so-satisfying.
§ Call blog 打call部屋 by Ruini Shi
Even in death, the devotion to idols continues. In FuneralPlay, a virtual funeral platform on Web 3.0, you can support your idols and lost loved ones beyond the grave by custom-making digital mausoleums tailored to the deceased’s interests; from a cat-meme maker’s gallery and fangirls’ party, to an otakus retreat and a Feng Shui master’s orchard. Forming a collective post-mortem online memorial, Ruini Shi will show us the magic behind how she transformed and gamified the concept of fandom into a digital afterlife.
§ Confusion blog 迷惑部屋 by Bart Seng Wen Long & Kawaii.agency
In the 'Confusion blog,' everyone can shine like an idol! Enter the realm of Kawaii.agency — a quirky, cute, and slightly cursed project by Bart Seng Wen Long and Juliusz Grabianski. Embrace Gen Z aesthetics and post-internet culture in a playful, contemporary setting.
§ Pick Ur Idol blog 偶像pickの部屋by Yasmine Anlan Huang
Dive deep into your emotions in the 'Pick Ur Idol blog’ and express your feelings for your idol with heartfelt messages that scroll across the screen. In 2018, Huang passed the auditions for AKB48 Team SH, a Chinese sister group of the Japanese idol musical group AKB48, but decided to leave Hong Kong for New York to pursue art. Huang will share her love-hate relationship with the idol industry and her unique journey as a fan, idol-wannabe, and cultural anthropologist.
§ Fan Fiction blog 手紙の部屋 by Ye Funa & MondayOFF
Peek, follow, and chase your idol in the 'Fan Fiction blog', where fan fiction comes to life! Meet Xiaomei, the fangirl and idol who could be anyone, by reading pages in MondayOFF, a self-published zine that explores the passionate and sometimes crazy world of fans. Relevant chapters include ‘#Fan Quan: A fangirl’s daily routine’, ‘How to “raise” an idol: Internet star-making’, and ‘Alpha Beta Omega dynamics in fan fiction’. There’s only room for laser-focused love, endless devotion, and positive vibes!
Come explore this dreamy world together and bask in the power of love and cuteness.
Lovingly
xoxo
ACCESS INFORMATION
Doors open at 6PM. Performance presentations start at 6:30PM. Due to limited capacity, we offer seats on a first-come, first-served basis.
This event takes place on the ground floor with step-free access in our multi-purpose programme space, with a fully accessible, all-gender bathroom. Earplugs and ear guards will be available for visitors to use.
Please feel free to inquire with info@asymmetryart.org if you would like to discuss any access needs. Please kindly be advised that requests should be made one week in advance of the event, and we will try our best to make accommodations subject to availability.
BIOGRAPHY
Chaney Diao, a multimedia artist and DJ, is known for her eclectic and boundary-defying electronic music sets. Drawing inspiration from her art practice, she explores the concepts of vibe and genre, creating immersive auditory experiences. Her performances, including notable sets at IKLECTIK London, challenge the conventional pace of (art) production, pushing listeners to engage with sound in new ways.
Yasmine Anlan Huang is an artist and writer migrating from cities to cities. She orchestrates a polyphony that blends past and future, fiction and reality, sublimity and absurdity, innocence and violence. With a fusion of personal cosmology, classical literature, historical archives, youth subcultures, and everyday objects, she crafts emotive worlds through moving images, texts, performances, and installations, all serving as surrogates for her hyper-vulnerability. She is also interested in how digital spaces swallow up and regurgitate life experiences.
Huang’s works have been featured internationally, including Whitney Biennial 2024, Power Station of Art, HART Haus, and Peckham24, with solo or duo exhibitions in Floating Projects and Goethe-Institut Hong Kong (forthcoming). She has been awarded residencies in Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture and Wassaic Project. Her writings and translations have appeared in Heichi Magazine, p-articles, SAMPLE Mag, and other platforms. Her debut book of poems and essays, Love of the Colonizer, was published by Accent Sisters.
Bart Seng Wen Long is a Singaporean artist-filmmaker currently based in London. Working with films, photography and performance, his practice draws on the uncanny clarity found in processes of fetishisation, confabulation and meditation. In the same tangent, Bart’s approach to art-making stems from mistranslations across contexts, genres and cultures. Through these playful experimentations of reality and form, Seng is interested in exploring the political economy of desire and how that is embodied in contemporary societies.
Seng is a Kone Foundation grant awardee, and was previously a finalist for the Dazed x CIRCA award and a Tour de Moon film grant winner. Seng co-curated Kawaii Agency along with Juliusz Grabianski; and for the last two years, he has been a guest programmer for Queer East, curating for their Expanded section. His work has been covered by SHOWstudio, the Wrong Biennale, Female, Financial Times, Service95, It’s Nice That, and Dazed.
Ruini Shi is an animation director based in London. She explores virtual intimacy and creates narratives that interrogate the compatibility between humanity and emerging technologies. She holds a BA in Interaction and Moving Images from the London College of Communication and an MA in Animation from the Royal College of Art.
Shi’s animated films have been awarded prizes including the Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica 2019. Her recent work, 'FuneralPlay' received an Honorable Mention at Prix Ars Electronica 2023, and was nominated for Best Website/ Mobile Sites at The Webby Awards and Best 3D/Interactive work at the Lumen Prize. Shi’s work has been showcased globally, including at HKW Berlin, M+ Hong Kong and the Ars Electronica Center Linz.
Ye Funa, born in Kunming, Yunnan, is an artist and researcher who lives and works in London and Beijing. Her practice critically engages with the realities of daily life and the perceived nexus between authority and various societal domains, such as differing power structures and marginalised groups. Her politically charged art uses pastiche to critique and satirise cultural uniformity. Ye’s recent work incorporates new technologies and engages with various ethnic communities, developing participatory, internet-based projects like ‘Exhibitionist: Curated Nail’ and ‘Smart Master’, probing the integration of art systems into personal and communal spaces. As a passionate advocate for self-publishing, Ye co-founded the independent publishing brand ‘MondayOFF’, editing and authoring artist books like ‘Shamate zine’ and ‘Fire Golden Flowers’.
Ye has had solo exhibitions at the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and Nottingham Contemporary, as well as participating in group exhibitions in institutions such as the Museum für Fotografie, Berlin; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei; esea contemporary, Manchester; Power Station of Art, Shanghai; Chronus Art Center, Shanghai; Art Center Nabi, Seoul; and Rhizome of the New Museum, NYC. Ye is a teacher in the Experimental Art and Sci-Tech Art Department, Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts, and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.
Ye Funa is currently our 2024 Librarian-in-Residence.