Vivian Chiu 

Gridland, 2011—23

Wood, cutting mat, bronze, paint, veneer, braided string, nails, copper wire 

Perhaps think of this collection of sculptures as a handmade city. Here we sit, slide, hide, dance, cook, and live on the complex surfaces of these wooden forms, which, fully solid, permit no entrance to their interiors. Walking between their strange geometries, some burnt black, others transformed to metallic bronze, on the dark and orderly grid of their streets, unusual perspectives generate brand-new effects. We descend the stairs to nowhere and jump on the charred wavy rectangles. Our monument lies on the north eastern line, split and glued fourways. A city of impossible architecture, Gridland is a site for you to imagine the ways you might inhabit this space. 

Gridland is an intervention by artist Vivian Chiu in Rafael Domenech’s self-publishing pavilion, The Medium is the Massage. 

Exhibition Images courtesy of Keshia Eugene