Here, ArtLab
&
Avant Garde Gallery
31st May, 2026 Sun
Opening: 31st May, 2026, 2pm-6pm
218 Merton St, Toronto M4S 1A1
01
展览主题
The Mirror of the Other｜他者之镜
“自我”从不是一个封闭而独立生成的存在。它诞生于观看之中，在他者的凝视、映照与回应里被辨认、被塑形，也在不断的错位与偏差中被重新定义。
The Mirror of the Other 以 Jacques Lacan 的“镜像阶段”理论为思想起点，聚焦主体认知形成过程中“他者”所扮演的关键角色，试图探讨个体如何在外部世界的反射与反馈中确认自身，并不断游移于认同、误认与重构之间。
展览汇集多位艺术家的跨媒介实践，通过绘画、摄影、影像、装置及综合材料创作，呈现身份、身体、记忆与社会关系之间的复杂张力，展开一场关于“观看”与“被观看”的持续追问。
02
展览前言/展览简介
我们是否真正看见过自己？
当目光投向镜面，我们所辨认出的“我”，究竟是主体真实的显现，还是被他者目光塑造后的投影？
镜像从来不是单纯的复制。它既是确认，也是偏差；既赋予主体完整性的幻象，也暗含着裂隙与错位。
法国精神分析学家 Jacques Lacan（拉康）曾指出，主体对“自我”的认知始于对镜中整体形象的辨认。然而，这一看似完整的确认，实际上建立在对外部映像的依赖之上。个体由此进入一个持续生成的过程——在他者的注视中确认存在，也在他者的映照里不断遭遇误认。
The Mirror of the Other 正是从这一悖论出发。展览试图回应一个根本性的命题：我们对于“自我”的理解，是否始终建立在对他者的想象之上？
参展作品通过多重媒介语言，介入身体经验、社会身份、情感投射与心理结构的复杂现场。艺术家们以各自的视觉叙事构建出不同维度的“镜面”，折射个体在现实与想象、主体与客体、观看与被观看之间的流动状态。
在这些交叠的反射中，镜子不再只是映照的媒介，而成为一个不断生成意义的场域。它提示我们：所谓“自我”，并非恒定的实体，而是在与他者持续发生关系的过程中，被不断观看、辨认、质询与重塑的结果。
当我们凝视镜中的映像，或许看到的从来不是自己，而是他者之镜中的另一重回声。
Jason Driskill
The Object and
the Projected Image
Cited Imagery:
page 20 of April 1967 Physique Pictorial magazine featuring model Bob Miller
diagram showing perspective lines for drawing / projection
vintage advertisement for Charles Atlas “Dynamic Tension” workout book
1950s-era somatotype documentation of US soldier (anonymized)
found photograph of two men
photograph of weathered community bulletin board
digital print on 200 lb watercolor paper mounted on wood
30 x 30 cm
2026
While American bodybuilding magazines in the 1950s and 60s idealized heteronormative masculine identity, many publications subversively promoted Queer sensibilities in spite of legislation forbidding Queer representation. “The Object and the Projected Image” is a digital collage that brings together imagery of male bodies from that era, structured within a textbook diagram demonstrating linear perspective from an artist’s vantage point. The image invites viewers to consider the virtues of desirability and male beauty that might not have been so easy to rationalize at the time.
Speed Undressing
Cited Imagery:
photo-illustration for lifesaving techniques in vintage Boy Scout manual self-portrait photograph of painted concrete surface
Digital print on 200 lb watercolor paper mounted on wood
30 x 30 cm
2011
In the digital collage “Speed Undressing,” the artist reenacts the a panel from the printed illustration (also titled “Speed Undressing”) published in an old Boy Scouts manual. While the illustration demonstrates the importance of disrobing before attempting to save a drowning victim, the artist’s photographic reenactment demonstrates a compulsive effort to locate one’s self within any given published text, inevitably drawing comparisons between personal identity and prescribed standards of strength, physical agility, heroic prowess or desirability.
Tao Liu
刘涛的自拍系列《饥京》以结合了行为表演与摄影的方式，展现了他“游历雾霾北京”(作者自述)过程中个体的无地彷徨以及肉身在权力象征面前的脆弱。他的赤裸的身体在城市与自然的过渡地段里流窜，并且以裸露的身体来确认自己的肉身焦虑，同时也展现身份的困惑与困境。——顾铮
我的创作一直在镜中，照见自己，照见世界。这次投稿的作品来自三个系列，横跨十年之久，这十年时代动荡剧烈，唯一不变的，是时间之镜，不断照见滚滚而来的一重又一重的荒谬。
Yihan Gu
Reunion
Acrylic Paint and Clay Collage on Canvas
24 x 36 inches
2025
Reunion uses the image of traditional Chinese hotpot to explore themes of memory, intimacy, and cultural belonging. Even without the presence of figures, the shared meal symbolizes family gatherings and reunions with friends, where connection is created through the collective act of eating. The different broths, ingredients, and sauces reflect the diversity of regional food cultures in China, while also representing the layered and fragmented nature of personal memory.
By incorporating ceramic and sculptural food elements, I transform an ordinary dining experience into an immersive installation that exists between nostalgia and ritual. Influenced by ideas of embodied memory and affect, the tactile materials emphasize how sensory experiences—taste, texture, and smell—can carry emotional connections across time and distance. Created from the perspective of migration, Reunion reflects on how familiar foods become emotional anchors to home, preserving warmth, comfort, and togetherness within the experience of displacement.
Zhengrui Zhao
Brewed Memory: Fragment of the Duomo
Charcoal and Espresso on Paper
18 x 24 inches
2025
This work captures a fragment of the Milan Cathedral through an experimental dialogue between charcoal and espresso. While charcoal establishes the architectural precision and structural weight of the Gothic form, splashed coffee grounds create atmospheric stains that introduce unpredictability, erosion, and temporality into the image.
The use of espresso, a material deeply embedded in Italian cultural identity, extends beyond symbolism into technical experimentation. By allowing liquid coffee to interact directly with the paper surface, the work investigates how unconventional materials can challenge traditional drawing processes. The stains behave as both medium and disruption, forcing adaptation and problem-solving throughout the composition.
Referencing Milan as both an architectural landmark and a historical site shaped by Renaissance humanism, the piece explores the tension between permanence and impermanence. The cathedral’s rigid geometry stands against the fluid, accidental traces of coffee, suggesting that history is never fixed but continually rewritten through layers of memory, material, and time.
Qiyi Chen
Tilting cubes
Foamcore, Cardboards, 3D prints
8 x 10 x 5 inches
2025
Tilting Cubes begins with a simple geometric grid and gradually disrupts its original sense of order through rotation, imbalance, and shifts in scale. By tilting and overlapping cubic forms, the work explores the tension between stability and instability, structure and fragmentation.
The contrast between translucent and opaque materials creates a dialogue between lightness and solidity, openness and enclosure. As the rigid geometry breaks apart, new spatial relationships and unexpected voids emerge, transforming the structure from a functional architectural form into an experimental exploration of perception and space.
The project reflects on how contemporary urban environments continuously reshape human spatial experience, while also blurring the boundary between architecture, sculpture, and conceptual art.
Hanchong Zhang
《Untitled I》
2024
这件作品拍摄于 2024 年夏天，聚焦于夏日环境中短暂而容易被忽视的光线变化。画面中的阳光局部地落在草地与散落的叶片上，使原本普通的自然场景产生了一种近乎静止的情绪状态。作品并没有强调明确的主体，而是通过阴影、纹理与有限的光线，引导观众进入一种缓慢而安静的观看过程。
摄影中的黑暗区域与被照亮的区域形成强烈对比，使光线本身成为画面的核心。对 Hanchong Zhang 来说，这种瞬间性的自然光不仅仅是一种视觉元素，更像是一种关于时间流逝的痕迹。作品试图捕捉夏日中那些短暂、安静，却带有情绪重量的片刻。
《Untitled II》
2024
这件作品拍摄于 2024 年夏天，围绕阳光穿透树叶时所形成的光影关系展开。画面中的强光、过曝与虚化背景共同构建出一种温暖却带有距离感的视觉氛围。相比于直接描绘自然景观，作品更关注光线所带来的心理感受与情绪暗示。
透过枝叶照射下来的光，在作品中被视为一种具有“救赎感”的存在。它像是在平静空间中突然出现的一道出口，使原本普通的街道与树木产生了超越现实的情绪张力。作品试图通过这种短暂而无法停留的光线，表达人在孤独、压抑或迷失状态下，对希望与情感释放的感知。
Hanchong Zhang 将这张照片视作一段未完成电影中的定格画面，让观众在光线与留白之间，自行进入属于自己的记忆与情绪之中。
Tiffany Ruohan Wang
Hues of Emotions
Color Pencil and Collage on Paper
9.38 x 13.5 inches
2026
This series of four color pencil on paper works explores the fluid, multi-layered nature of identity through overlapping portraits. Each piece features translucent, interwoven faces rendered in vibrant, shifting hues, from cool blues and turquoise to warm yellows, reds, and burgundies. The layered facial features blend and dissolve into one another, creating a single composite yet fragmented figure that embodies the constant reconstruction of the self.
The overlapping colors and expressions visually articulate the tension between internal emotional states and external perception. Facial features appear simultaneously calm, joyful, anxious, frustrated, and contemplative, reflecting the rapid mood fluctuations and identity adaptations experienced by the artist. The deliberate transparency of the layers suggests that emotions are powerful yet impermanent messages from the body; they are important signals rather than fixed truths.
Shannon Ningfei Xiao
Becoming Pigeon at Pigeon Park
Pigeon Park, Vancouver
performance art video
2. 20min, looping
2025
Pigeon Park is a transitional urban space within the colonial city of Vancouver, connecting Chinatown, the downtown district, and the waterfront. The site is named after the introduced species of pigeons that inhabit the area. As a continuously migrating Chinese woman, the artist pauses within this space and mimics the gestures and movements of pigeons. Through nodding, wing-like motions, and wandering, the body gradually enters a strange and repetitive condition.
These movements begin to evoke other forms of existence beyond pigeons themselves — such as urban drifters, drug addict, migrants, or other identities that remain continuously watched, overlooked, or displaced within the city.
For her, to become pigeon is also to become something else not yet named. Through continuous imitation and shifting, the artist
Junyu Yao
Roses by the window
22.9*30.5cm
Acrylic
January 27th, 2026
This artwork features pink roses by the window as its main subject, using acrylic paint to depict the changing light on the petals, vase, and windowsill. Through the contrast of warm and cool tones and loose brushstrokes, the painting creates a quiet and slightly hazy atmosphere. Junyu hopes to capture fleeting and tender emotions in everyday moments, making light and shadow not only a part of the space but also an extension of emotion.
The End
Here, ArtLab 是一个活跃于多伦多的当代艺术平台，致力于连接青年创作者、艺术学习者与更广阔的艺术社群。平台持续分享优秀当代艺术家的创作实践、艺术行业资讯以及多伦多本地当代艺术展览动态，推动关于艺术创作与文化表达的交流与讨论。
通过展览策划、艺术家对谈、以及多元艺术教育项目，Here, ArtLab 为新兴创作者提供展示与成长的平台，输送与当代艺术相关的前沿信息、艺术家声音与优秀作品，构建开放而富有活力的艺术实践空间。
