Exploring a World Without an Axis in There is no center
ROH is delighted to present There is no center, a twelve-week long exhibition with the quiet provocation: How might we navigate a world without an axis? How do we make space for complexity and for contradiction? Across twelve weeks, works enter and exit, their presence provisional, their forms, meaning, and expression mutable. At its core, the exhibition resists the familiar impulse to reduce, to simplify, to render the observable as well as the unobservable into manageable terms.
The exhibition is inspired by artists whose works belong to a world of surfaces, objects, and production too often ignored, a world that we move through without attention. Against the hulky weight of meaning in centers, these works make revolutions that are gentle and profound in and from multiple places; they ask, rather, that the viewer attend carefully, that they recognize the fleeting possibilities of something that is neither fixed nor definite. To refuse centralization is to acknowledge the restless, layered complexity of the present—a moment in which the drive to control, to impose order, has often come at the expense of what is vital, unpredictable, and alive.
Artists included in There is no center are Aditya Novali (b. Surakarta, 1978), Albertho Wanma (b. Biak, 1986), Bea Camacho (b. Manila, 1983), Budi Santoso (b. Cilacap, 1980), Charwei Tsai (b. Taipei, 1980), chi too (b. Kuala Lumpur, 1981), Kate Newby (b. Auckland, 1979), Kazuko Miyamoto (b. Tokyo, 1942), Kitty Taniguchi (b. Philippines, 1952), Mella Jaarsma (b. Emmeloord, 1960), Mira Rizki Kurnia (b. Bandung, 1994), Oototol (b. Bali, -), Orawan Arunrak (b. Bangkok, 1985), Rab (b. Quang Ngai, 2000), Raha Raissnia (b. Tehran, 1968), Tcheu Siong (b. Laos, 1968), and Tith Kanitha (b. Phnom Penh, 1987). Writers Denise Lai, Erwin Romulo, Harry Burke, Hung Duong, Innas Tsuroiya, Mara Coson, and Martin Germann will in turn respond to the artworks and the exhibition with written words that will accumulate over time and reach its full completion by the end of the exhibition. Throughout the period of the show, the gallery space will also expect movements by Bea Camacho, Charwei Tsai, chi too, Mella Jaarsma, Rab, and Raha Raissnia. The is open to the public until 13 April 2025.
