間 Interstice

《Interstice 間》 is a group exhibition featuring four contemporary artists from Korea, China, and Japan, jointly curated by Caption Seoul and Tokyo-based Chinese curator SEIBUN. The participating artists navigate the disconnections and intersections of borders, languages, cultures, and histories, continuing their own expressions while inhabiting the “in-between (間)”––a threshold where they do not fully belong. The title 《Interstice 間》 comes from the shared Chinese character ‘間’ in East Asian cultural spheres (gan in Korean, jiān in Chinese, あいだ/あわい in Japanese) and in juxtaposition to the English word ‘interstice’ by its philosophical foundation. ‘間’ suggests more than a spatial gap. In its composition—the sun (日) framed within a gate (門)—it embodies the space for unfolding of time and experience: relationships, sensations, and events. It evokes the way light filters through closed structures, generating passages of encounter and flow. ‘Interstice’ is also the space where existing orders and structures falter, suspend, or fail to complete themselves—what Foucault calls a “discontinuity.” It also resonates with Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of the “ligne de fuite”—a generative line of escape that breaks from established systems to give rise to new sensations and identities. Interstices are fluid, indeterminate zones where fissures within structures generate openings for critique, resistance, and the circulation of desire. This exhibition considers how subjectivity among the younger generation emerges, drifts, and takes shape within such ambiguous and intermittent spaces. Subjectivity and independence are never isolated in the context of globalization, but are established through relations with others. Both ‘間’ and ‘interstice’ remind us that existence itself is relational: we are always inhabiting a state of of ‘in-between’––at the intersections and dialogues of various forces, and within gaps that are subtle yet significant. Today’s younger generation confronts a new existential condition shaped by the everchanging and declining regional and temporal boundaries. In the environment of information overload, the compression of time and space emerges a profound contradiction between the formation of subjectivity and the demands of external reality. Young people recognize themselves in this “gap” state––never fully belonging to a single cultural position, yet unable to escape the influence of diverse cultural codes. Self-recognition has always relied on interpreting the appearances of others. However when those become indistinct, the subject’s self-cognition also falters. The reference system for constructing the self grows unstable, and in its place arises the anxious compulsion of “becoming someone.” Within the noise of excessive information, clear self-perception becomes elusive, leaving us in a continual search for our position amid the blurred appearances of people and things. The subject is no longer fixed in specific geographical, cultural, and social positions, but floats between fiction and reality, drifting through different symbolic systems and cultural codes. This fluidity brings us both the possibility of liberation and new forms of predicament. Identity takes on a flexible and unstable form, boundaries grow ambiguous permeability, and any sense of certainty is constantly questioned and reconstructed. In such conditions, ‘間’ becomes not merely a spatial position but a mode of being. Confronted with this situation, ‘imagination’ operates as a necessary cognitive mechanism––not an escape. It is a way of reasoning and responding within complex and relational networks. Is self-recognition built upon illusions? Could fictional imagination become the necessary cognitive mechanism for subjects to process the blurred others and respond to compressed time and space? There are no standard answers, yet these questions lie at the core of young contemporary artists and their practices. This exhibition reconstructs the symbols the young East Asian artists encounter, as they explore and attempt to address questions of contemporary subjectivity. The artists in the exhibition reconstruct the representations and impressions that constitute their experience through various mediums and methods. They question bodily boundaries, unsettle past and present through the manipulation of ritual and memory, and approach the generation of otherness from social structures and non-human perspectives. Their practices are not only personal expressions but also demonstrations of cultural sensibilities and institutional pressure shared across generations in East Asia. 《間 Interstice》 presents a state of being: how contemporary youth exist in ‘間’, how they perceive within gaps, how they persist in uncertainty. These practices are part of the problem, and also a response to reality. In this sense, the exhibition is both a record of the current existential state and a continuation of this state. We invite you to enter this exhibition and attune yourself to the gaps in which you are placed––between objects, between yourself, and other beings.