In over two years of operation, Arrow Factory has presented exhibitions and projects that have been distinguished in part by their concrete or hypothetical relationship to the social context of its immediate local setting. 38 Jianchang Hutong, a new kinetic installation work by Zhang Peili, establishes a different approach. Shedding any direct social commentary or audience interaction, 38 Jianchang Hutong represents a careful merging with the interior architecture of Arrow Factory’s space while emphatically disassociating itself with the external social surroundings. In an almost imperceptible cycle, the back wall inside the space creeps towards the front glass façade and slowly retreats back again. Correspondingly, a pale circle of light on the wall widens and narrows as the wall moves forward and back.

The installation 38 Jianchang Hutong asks of its viewers not casual engagement, but meditative patience. As such, it can be interpreted as both a desire to attract and pull in one’s attention and an act to willfully repel and disregard it. Working primarily in the medium of video, Zhang Peili’s artistic practice has often concerned itself with the slippage between realities that are constructed or perceived and that which is experienced bodily. Putting the camera aside this time, Zhang relies upon visual strategies to create an elastic void in the midst of copious hutong life which foregrounds the incongruity of Arrow Factory to its adjacent surroundings while also prompting an acute sense of engaged disengagement.