xindi: Spring-a-choo!

Project Lai is excited to announce xindi’s first solo exhibition in Shanghai, from March 15 to April 20, 2026. We are activating una, a space in a historic building at the intersection of Yongjia Road and Wulumuqi Road in Shanghai, conceptualizing it as a magnetic tape that weaves together various media. This 'tape' records the shifting emotions, fluid identities, and the unwriteable 'broken language' (残语) of individuals living amidst socio-political upheaval and cultural diaspora.

Tracing a trajectory from 2022 to the present, this tape includes tracks featuring four themes: 'Allergy (过敏）,' 'Mimi Sounds（靡靡之音）,' 'Autumn on a Heart（心上秋）,' and 'Broken Language（残语）.' These tracks look back at the past, dive into the subconscious, and rehearse the future—bringing forth sensations of pain and hallucination sharpened by the arrival of spring.

'Allergy' starts within the body. When the body’s immune system mistakes gentle pollen for an enemy, it immediately issues a warning through sneezing and red eyes. In the video Spring Allergy, the artist draws parallels between her and her mother’s memories across Shanghai, Berlin, and Chonburi City. The images of masks, willow fluff, plane trees, coconut leaves, and ocean waves are intertwined in time and languages, uncovering the relationship between one and one's environment that is being continuously reinterpreted and identified.

'Mimi sounds' extend themselves through various sounds. Karaoke melodies, electronic music, spoken words, private recordings play on a loop in the space. 'Mimi sounds' were once dismissed as a sign of weakness, frailty, and cultural decay, whereas in xindi's shaped color vinyl series A Mimi Heart, she sang for the most intimate emotions that is being wiped out and about to disappear from the bottom a heart in the context of cultural diaspora.

'Autumn on a Heart' emerges from family memories. Video work Autumn on a wet heart unfolds itself with a 90s Chinese pop song Wet Heart (潮湿的心). Drawing together video clips of daily life of her parents, grandmother, two dogs and three parrots, xindi knitted a new melody of love and sorrow surrounding different generations of family members, which grows gradually in conflicts between mutual understanding, misinterpretation, and gentle care for each other.

'Broken language' manifests in various forms in the exhibition: punched music paper, embroidered texts, 'chewed' sculptures, games for discovering one's own body language. These fragments of language, seemingly mutilated and detached from conventional linguistic logic, reconnects body, sound, and meaning.

In xindi's artistic practice, language exists in many forms: it can be falling pollen, while it can also be an uninscribed gravestone. In the exhibition, videos, sounds, and objects play the roles of different sound tracks and create a symphony of spring narrative that oscillates between sorrow and hope.