WHERE THE HEART IS
September 2021
Ora-Ora Tai Kwun
Hong Kong gallery Ora-Ora presents a brand-new show by Chinese artist Zhang Yanzi, entitled Where the Heart Is. The artist was visiting her daughter in New York City when the pandemic struck, forcing her into several months of lockdown in the city. Having observed at first hand strife and dissonance, rising tensions, and chilling outbreaks of disunity and disharmony, the artist drew inspiration from modern civilization’s unprecedented stress test. Refusing to be disheartened, Zhang Yanzi uses these episodes as a catalyst for a wider incursion into the values we share and the hopes we hold dear. Where the Heart Is muses on the unseen ties that hold communities and families together in adversity and in prosperity. Rejecting prevailing premonitions of increased societal estrangement and alienation, she nurtures connections and shared aspirations, seeking salvation and common ground. In so doing, Zhang Yanzi investigates the role that art must play in forming lasting bonds, making honest assessments of its potency in situations of imminent threat and ongoing emergency. Concurrently, she explores the real and imagined refuges that engender a sense of safety and of home, probing the resilience and nature of those invisible lines that loop us in unison.