Shannon Liang – Fourth Eye
FOURTH EYE
6th September – 22nd September 2024
WET
Hillevliet 90, INTRO, Ground Floor
Rotterdam 3074KD
Opening: Friday 6th September, 18:00 – 21:00
Fourth Eye is open: Mon – Thurs 8:30 – 16:00 / Fri – 8:30 – 18:00 / Sat – 14:00 – 18:00 / Sun Closed
Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend hours: 21st – 22nd September, 11:00 – 17:00.
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We are excited to announce the first exhibition at WET after the summer break. Through our guest program “WET hosts” we are proud to present Fourth Eye, a solo exhibition by Rotterdam-based artist Shannon Liang.
My left eye now has a ghost or a halo sometimes,
When I look through the dark
Look at the moon
I am afraid when I see it
Afraid of what I have lost
Shifting between interior reflections and collaborative exchanges, Fourth Eye looks for ways to make meaning from the daily experiences of our lives. While offering reflections on loss, sight, and memory, the exhibition draws from spiritual frameworks as prompts for connection and understanding.
The exhibition debuts the video work After Lasik, which begins with a recording of the laser vision correction surgery that left the artist with a ‘halo’ visual distortion in her left eye. In voiceover the video walks through the surgical procedure and tries to make sense of this minor loss of vision—this persistent ‘halo’—while considering the mechanics of vision and grief. Note: footage of the procedure is graphic, it’s ok to look away.
The multi-channel video installation The Sun Burns An Image Into My Eye, asks, are we permeable? Can we reach across distances through the things we hold on to—through what remains? The installation offers a closer look at the transformative cycles meandering through mundane life—of baking, gardening, a sunburn, a leaky shower—to look for resonance.
Initially created in 2020 after the artist’s move from the US to Rotterdam, the video captured daily experiences of migration and adaptation. Liang sought to transform her feelings of alienation by turning her attention towards examples of interconnection and permeability in her surroundings. Three years later, following the sudden death of the artist’s then-partner, the cycles of living and dying within the video held deeper significance, and she revisited the work, adding a second video channel that allowed for another relationship to time, to seeing, and to memory. The two channels weave together themes of life, death, decay, and regeneration, questioning our permeability.
Touching Feeling invites viewers for divinatory card readings that combine I Ching and Tarot systems, bridging the artist’s Eastern and Western migratory heritageIn these readings, both the artist and the participants have equal authority over interpretation—working together to make sense of images, questions, experiences, and feelings.
Touching Feeling will be performed during the Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend on 21st – 22nd September.
You can sign up for a card reading here.
Fourth Eye is supported by CBK Rotterdam. Thank you to the Boijmans Zuid for help with installation.
Shannon Liang is an artist based in Rotterdam and New York, whose work arises from a process of daily documentation and self archiving. Shannon’s practice spans writing, video installation, performance, and drawing. Born in Baltimore, she is a recent graduate of the Piet Zwart Institute MFA programme in Rotterdam.
Access: The exhibition Fourth Eye is located on the ground floor which has step free access via a ramp. Gender neutral and wheelchair accessible toilets are available. Please get in touch if you have any questions about access.