A glimpse of an alternate dimension, shaped according to the ancestral logics and imagined futures of Song’s family. Artworks are covered in symbolic details, patterns, coded pictorial language and untranslatable knowledge that hint at the multiplicitous stories which collectively form this surreal space. There are worlds within worlds here, bodies within bodies, faces within faces.  (Excerpt from exhibition introduction by Eoin Dara, Head of Exhibitions)  

Rae-Yen Song created this print edition ​in tandem with the development of the exhibition ▷▥◉▻ at Dundee Contemporary Arts. A fluid​, creative dialogue throughout the production of this body of work enabled sculptural elements for the exhibition to become integrated into experimental processes in the Print Studio and, inversely, layers from the print development such as deep-etched copper plates, or intricately cut inky woodblocks to ultimately merge into the gallery environment. The resulting editions are closely interconnected but diverse.     

▥vessel▥ carries the inky imprints of ambiguous creatures that recur in different forms and compositions throughout the artist’s installation. Arranged on a soft-white surface reminiscent of an ancient scroll, the embossed shapes unfurl vertically, ​intentionally recalling pictographic characters upon the ​semi-translucent and fibrous Japanese paper; untranslated, so with their meaning open-ended, they evoke what Song calls ...an imagined dialogue with a long-departed grandfather. He was a being from another time and place, and my conversation with him addresses crossing, migration, loss, survival and labour.

Courtesy of Dundee Contemporary