Information
Art work overview
Overcast Until Further Notice
Installation 2026
Overcast Until Further Notice explores the lingering presence of lost futures—visions of tomorrow that once appeared inevitable but now remain suspended and unresolved. Drawing on Mark Fisher’s concept of “the slow cancellation of the future,” the work reflects on a collective condition in which expectations of progress have gradually diminished, leaving behind a persistent sense of uncertainty and nostalgia.
Growing up in China during the rapid urban transformation of the early 2000s, I witnessed the emergence of blue-glass skyscrapers and modernist architecture as symbols of optimism and national progress. These structures embodied aspirations towards a technologically advanced future and became visual markers of a new era. Today, however, these once futuristic forms have themselves become objects of nostalgia. The work proposes that what we mourn is often not the past itself, but the futures imagined within it possibilities that were anticipated but never fully realised.
Influenced by ideas of media archaeology and hauntology, the installation examines how cultural remnants persist as traces of unrealised futures. It also draws connections to post-war Brutalist architecture in Britain, which similarly embodied collective aspirations for social reconstruction and progress. Across different contexts, these architectural forms reveal how societies project hopes onto the built environment, and how those hopes eventually transform into cultural memories.
Throughout the installation, natural elements gradually infiltrate and alter these constructed spaces. Moss, weathering, moisture, and organic growth coexist with deliberate acts of preservation and repair. This tension between human intervention and natural processes reflects the instability of permanence itself. Rather than depicting a dramatic collapse, the work focuses on quieter forms of transformation, where decay, adaptation, and regeneration unfold simultaneously.
Situated between nostalgia and anticipation, deterioration and renewal, Overcast Until Further Notice invites viewers to inhabit an unresolved temporal state—one in which the future has not disappeared entirely, but remains overcast, deferred, and awaiting another possibility.
Installation 2026
Overcast Until Further Notice explores the lingering presence of lost futures—visions of tomorrow that once appeared inevitable but now remain suspended and unresolved. Drawing on Mark Fisher’s concept of “the slow cancellation of the future,” the work reflects on a collective condition in which expectations of progress have gradually diminished, leaving behind a persistent sense of uncertainty and nostalgia.
Growing up in China during the rapid urban transformation of the early 2000s, I witnessed the emergence of blue-glass skyscrapers and modernist architecture as symbols of optimism and national progress. These structures embodied aspirations towards a technologically advanced future and became visual markers of a new era. Today, however, these once futuristic forms have themselves become objects of nostalgia. The work proposes that what we mourn is often not the past itself, but the futures imagined within it possibilities that were anticipated but never fully realised.
Influenced by ideas of media archaeology and hauntology, the installation examines how cultural remnants persist as traces of unrealised futures. It also draws connections to post-war Brutalist architecture in Britain, which similarly embodied collective aspirations for social reconstruction and progress. Across different contexts, these architectural forms reveal how societies project hopes onto the built environment, and how those hopes eventually transform into cultural memories.
Throughout the installation, natural elements gradually infiltrate and alter these constructed spaces. Moss, weathering, moisture, and organic growth coexist with deliberate acts of preservation and repair. This tension between human intervention and natural processes reflects the instability of permanence itself. Rather than depicting a dramatic collapse, the work focuses on quieter forms of transformation, where decay, adaptation, and regeneration unfold simultaneously.
Situated between nostalgia and anticipation, deterioration and renewal, Overcast Until Further Notice invites viewers to inhabit an unresolved temporal state—one in which the future has not disappeared entirely, but remains overcast, deferred, and awaiting another possibility.