Kiang Malingue is pleased to present “Daydreams”, an exhibition of Su-Mei Tse’s sculptural and photographic works. It is the artist’s second exhibition with the gallery since “Elegy” in 2017, featuring around twenty recent works finely placed in the space of Kiang Malingue’s Sik On building.

For Tse, the formation of daydreams is a personal sharing of the everyday life, and a sensitive operation that is particularly poetic and substantial in relation to the world’s reality today. “It helps me to handle the everyday experience and to deal with suffering in the world by shifting the view and weaving the vulnerable material into my artistic process.” Against overwhelming waves of negative news, threats and crises, daydreaming and the pursuit of poetry could be regarded as a vital practice, empowering an individual by offering alternative perspectives and a sheltered space of one’s own.

Tse composed the exhibition in the spirit of disposing written notes in a rhythmical, circular choreography that traverses the space. This is the process by which recurring motifs, voices, images and words emerge, simulating the ways daydreams take shape as sublime, seemingly intangible visual manifestations, and then dissipate just as quietly before making another return.

On the ground floor of the Sik On building, one sees in Ear (nested) (2024) a found bird’s nest atop an Italian-style table from the artist’s personal antique collection, as well as a black & white image of an ear occupying the nest. From a surrealist sign that hints at the presence of discrete sounds and silent moments throughout the space, to the artist’s well-known treatment of nestling bodies and fabrics, as well as the intention of incorporating temporal inscriptions—this peculiar, feathered object from the artist’s home sets the conditions for daydreaming.

The brass pieces Sealed (2024) here presented as a triptych are indicative of Tse’s fascination with the Japanese tradition of tsutsumu, which is a delicate form of wrapping used to protect fragile objects and to show respect for others. Tse has used strings in previous works such as Le Coup scellé (2014), and has explored wrapping as an act of significance in works including Pieds bandés (Bound feet) (2000). The recurrent interest in strained strings can also be traced back to the artist’s musical background as a cellist. Here, she combines the technique with an insistence on tension and creates an enveloped form that insulates as it gently traces fissures and openings, in the spirit of a drawing. With Entanglements (2024), an installation presented in the white cube space of the gallery, Tse creates another work with the same wrapping gesture, addressing similar topics around vulnerability and around coping with an entangled world, but contrasting Sealed with its mat, silent material.

Broken (teapot) (2024), also on view, captures the fragile nature of reality. Collapses and accidents that take place in life are understood by Tse through the perspective of creation; the remains of a broken teapot are sublimated into a new entity, encouraging one to consider, rather than in terms of repair and restoration, an experiential moment of authenticity that is cherished. In addition to exploring existential dilemmas, the repeated spheric forms in “Daydreams”—including the hand-made Dorodango (2024)—explore the deeper meaning of creation, and can be seen as directly linked to the video work Shaping (2019), projected on the ground floor of the gallery.

Towards the end of the exhibition, before reaching Love Letters (2024), an installation made of unwrapped, thin paper-like porcelain sheets, is the text piece God sleeps in stone (2024) that adapts an ancient quote and reads: “God sleeps in stone/breathes in plants/dreams in animals and awakens in man.” By dwelling in spiritual and meditative moments, Tse delicately transforms fragments and mundane entanglements into a pure and poetic visual score.