wave hands, like clouds, not eyes is a sequence of haptic encounters that trace the internal processes experienced by the artist when practising taijiquan, an internal martial art meant for both healing and injuring, incorporating daoist principles of non-purposeful action (無為 wu wei) and natural spontaneity (自然 zi ran), and the dualist interplay of yin yang cosmology. Through shifting textures, sound and scents, emphasizing contact with the ground, air, and the passage through both time and space, these sensorial experiences focus awareness on training bodily agency and the relation of the microcosmic to the wider horizon. Moving through a space of objects that are in flux at different paces, also dispersed throughout are things that have become shorthand for the mix of heritage and daily use that describe ‘Chinatown’ and its place in the diasporic imaginary.

Serena Lee’s practice stems from a fascination with polyphony and its radical potential for mapping power, perception and belonging. She plays with movement, language, cinema, voice, and space. Serena collaborates as part of Read-in, a collective researching political, embodied, and situated practices of reading; and with artist Christina Battle as SHATTERED MOON ALLIANCE, a framework for sci-fi world-building through living research and transmedia publication.