Under the Common Sea 海的下面还有海

The exhibition explores the diverse lives, experiences, and cultural practices of Chinese diasporic communities in the United States.

The title borrows Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s concept of the undercommons: forms of collective life, knowledge, and relationships that take shape beneath or beyond the structures of institutional recognition. The exhibition looks beyond familiar narratives of professional success and economic achievement and turns its attention to the many ways Chinese diasporic populations build lives, relationships, and communities through art, culture, care, education, service, organizing, and other forms of labor.

⁡All made in the past three years, artworks in Under the Common Sea 海的下面还有海 trace linguistic and visual similarities and differences across borders, intergenerational connections through craft, and human adaptability and resilience shaped by migration. The artists and organizations use installation, painting, textile, and archive materials to reflect on Chinese and Sinophone diasporic experience in the United States, with a particular focus on New York City.