NH: BENEATH THE COMMUNE / DAULANG YONGSAN SEOUL 2022

Beneath the commune, in the chthonic, hallucinatory place, there is no one time or space – one people or dream – one past, present, future. Beneath the commune, we balance on a knife edge of contradictions and inversions, of images and ideas that share a world just beyond ours, a world just within reach. Beneath the commune, I is you, and you is whoever you choose, and we need not be afraid of the dead, only the living. Beneath the commune, we live and fly like the sirens, in searching sadness, wanting a retributive justice, and the sun is a ghost that haunts the night. Or so we are told by the spectral, flame-haired narrator of The Neon Hieroglyph (2021), Tai Shani’s spectacular and dream-like nine-chapter film, which at once hosts, emanates, and displaces the multi-media works assembled alongside it – a collective body of paintings, sculptures, wall reliefs, and prints that constitute NH: Beneath the Commune.