Glimpses of the Guest Room

25/06/2025

Writer: Ben Vickers

Exhibition Dates: June 20, 2025 – June 23, 2025

Location: Adelaide Road, Chalk Farm, London, NW3 3QE

Curators: Lexi Duan & Freesia Tianyue Pi

Artists: Lexi Duan, Freesia Tianyue Pi, George Hinks, Kaja Upelj, Jennifer Jones, Yijia Wu

"Glimpses of the Guest Room" is a cross-disciplinary group exhibition involving six UK-based artists, exploring the heterotopic qualities of the "guest room" as a space of overlap between the personal and the performative. Using textiles, sculpture, installation, and fashion performance, the exhibition probes how this domestic space embodies tension between intimacy and distance, temporality and permanence, and self and other.

Curator Lexi Duan explains: “The guest room itself carries a performative quality—it’s both a private space and a space on display.” The exhibition begins with a dinner table as a symbol of shared space, where Yijia Wu’s "Soap Bowl" uses the ephemeral language of soap and water to represent the temporality of the guest’s presence. Lexi’s own fashion pieces are arranged to suggest a quiet, unspoken conversation between two people, creating an atmosphere charged with emotional subtlety.

Lexi further reflects: “We wanted to guide visitors to oscillate between the familiar and the strange, creating a space that feels welcoming but slightly uncertain.” She emphasizes, “We didn’t restrict the exhibition to a specific visual language or medium, but instead viewed ‘the guest room’ as a conceptual space that invites multiplicity. It is a space where different materials, forms, and voices can coexist.” In the exhibition, objects such as curtains, cutlery, lamps, and clothes become more than just decoration; they are integral parts of the story. The works invite engagement, while simultaneously maintaining a sense of distance and quiet observation.

Curator Freesia Tianyue Pi highlights: “We didn’t want to define ‘home,’ but rather stimulate reflection on the themes of belonging, boundaries, and the fleeting nature of emotional connections.” She references Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, describing the guest room as a layered space serving the guest and the host in different ways: “For the guest, it is a temporary place of pause, a site of uncertain comfort or quiet displacement. For the host, it becomes a stage, curated for someone else’s presence but rarely used by the host themselves.”

Freesia continues, “We approached the curation process as a negotiation between individual practices rather than imposing a uniform narrative. There’s a tension between the works, created by their careful staging and spatial relationships, while still allowing each piece to stand on its own.” In her own work, "Unsittable," Freesia uses a seemingly ordinary dressing stool, which is non-functional, to subvert expectations and provoke a sense of discomfort within the familiar.

Freesia further explains: “The guest room’s ‘welcome’ is not always comfortable—it can also contain elements of rejection, waiting, and performance.” Through works like Jennifer Jones’ "Living Room Curtain Series" and Freesia’s installation, she creates a dynamic dialogue between light and shadow, guiding the viewer’s movement through the space. “The guest room,” she notes, “serves as a metaphor for any space shaped by asymmetrical experiences, shifting roles, and the quiet negotiation between self and other.”

In terms of curatorial approach, both Lexi and Freesia emphasize “dialogue” over “uniformity.” They engaged in one-on-one conversations with each artist, allowing for individual voices to expand within the shared concept of the guest room. Lexi concludes, “Each work retains its distinct voice, but they all respond to one another in soft, subtle ways, creating a sense of interconnection.”

Ultimately, "Glimpses of the Guest Room" is more than an exhibition—it is an invitation to experience the guest room as a transient space of encounter. Through the familiar and the unfamiliar, the intimate and the distant, the exhibition explores how space and objects can shape our relationship to self, other, and time. Visitors enter the space as guests themselves, experiencing both the comfort and discomfort that this liminal zone evokes.