Lap-See Lam – Tales of the Altersea (Prologue)

Tales of the Altersea (Prologue) marks Lap-See Lam’s second solo exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake and her first in Berlin. The artist invites into a prologue of the narrative Tales of the Altersea previously presented at the Portikus, Frankfurt and the Swiss Institute, New York. As a literary feature, this enables a new introduction to the works on show in Berlin, created in the past four years including the programmatic VR installation Phantom Banquet.

Lap-See Lam explores questions of interpretation, representation and identification in her practice working both with contemporary technology as well as traditional references and techniques. On one hand, the notion of glitches informs the artist’s visual language, referencing a ‘generation loss’ both in a literal data transfer and an idiomatic inheritance of knowledge throughout family generations. On the other, symbolic features from traditional forms of storytelling such as shadow plays, to the décor of Western Chinese restaurants become an allegory for the experience of the Cantonese diaspora. The artist’s biography weaves various features into her storytelling since her parents had to sell their restaurant in 2014, a family business founded by her grandmother at the end of the 1970s after her emigration from Hong Kong to Sweden. Lap-See Lam delves into almost magical imaginations of Chinoiserie, defined by imperialist trading, while reflecting on the reality of migration to both claim ownership of and complicate the idea of cultural heritage – a duality that characterises the artist’s mythical installations.