SOUS, HIBOUX, BIJOUX

Yen-Chao Lin

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The exhibition Sous, hiboux, bijoux brings together several works by Yen-Chao Lin, showcasing the artist’s versatility and mastery of various mediums and craft techniques. Her practice focuses on working with diverse materials such as minerals and organic elements, which she manipulates, hammers, intertwines, and punches with deep joy.

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The works presented consist of a sculpture, As Above So Below (2025), installed in the garage and the waiting room, and a series of short animations: We Shift, From Within, and To Be Free (2015). Centered on the theme of play — an essential element of the artist’s creative process — the exhibition’s title draws inspiration from games and parodies the name of the game rock-paper-scissors.

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Seeking to contextualize contemporary art within a former train station, As Above So Below connects to the vast rail network that spans the globe. The work draws inspiration from the artist’s teenage years and her diasporic experience after immigrating to Canada. While staying with a host family in Laval, next to the railway tracks, she placed coins on the rails with her new friends. Searching for the coins and finding them after they had been flattened by passing trains was a thrilling and entertaining experience shared by many children living near the railroads.

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Suspended in midair, the first part of As Above So Below consists of thousands of Canadian pennies flattened by trains and riveted together, forming an organic, fluid trajectory reminiscent of a railroad track, a shimmering snake, or a dragon kite soaring freely through the air. In Asian cultures, the dragon symbolizes life, power, and good fortune; whereas in Europe, finding a coin on the ground is considered a sign of good luck. These two intersecting beliefs reveal the artist’s dual identity. Below and slightly offset, a black enameled shape, mimicking a shadow, reflects, duplicates, and transforms the line above it. Beyond its ethereal beauty, the duality presented in this work evokes the tensions between the precious allure of copper and the dark side of resource extraction, between product and labor, and between appearance and hidden cost. It also embodies the stories of exploitation that haunt the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, including resource extraction, the discrimination faced by Chinese workers, and the colonial control over Indigenous territories. Thus, the title As Above So Below reveals this duality, according to which two opposing elements cannot exist without one another.

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In addition, the exhibition features three stop-motion animations created with an overhead projector in collaboration with Oliver Lewis. We Shift, From Within, and To Be Free (2015) feature objects and organic artefacts collected by the artists, shuffling with geometric shapes that come together and break apart to the random rhythm of an eclectic soundtrack. The artists play with staging imaginary scenes, caught between light and shadow, evoking nursery rhymes, whether sung or hummed, and conjuring a hypnotic pleasure in observing the moving objects.

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The works presented in the exhibition are easily accessible and offer multiple levels of interpretation. The artist’s ability to introduce a sense of lightness through references to play and a sense of depth by suggesting historical flaws, all while drawing on meticulous craftsmanship, results in works that are both aesthetically and conceptually refined.

Caroline Andrieux

 

 

 

ABOUT YEN-CHAO LIN

A multidisciplinary artist born in Taipei and based in Montreal since the age of 13, Yen-Chao Lin earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Concordia University in 2008, with a specialization in film production. Her work has been exhibited in numerous renowned galleries and institutions both here and abroad, including the Rimouski Museum, Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art and OBORO, as well as SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin.

 

In 2026, the artist won the prestigious Pauline-Desautels Prize for As Above So Below. Her practice explores elements that elude the eye: beliefs, spirituality, oral traditions, the occult, dowsing, Feng Shui, and power dynamics. By bringing together traditional craftsmanship and ancient relics, the artist creates works in which the visible and the invisible collide.