In a time when material culture is increasingly mediated by screens, systems, and shifting symbolic codes, Substance & Recoding proposes a timely investigation into the evolving role of objects in contemporary art and life. Anchored in the theoretical framework of the Semantic Turn, this exhibition reframes the object not merely as a bearer of aesthetic or utilitarian value, but as an active agent of meaning—capable of intervention, disruption, and redefinition.
Organised by Synonym Lab and curated by YDMD Studio, with Wei Mo as Curatorial Director and Xuan Xu as Curatorial Assistant, the exhibition draws academic support from the Jewellery & Metals Studio at Shanghai University of Fine Arts, a research-led department known for its focus on the structural, semantic, and cultural dimensions of materials.
A Site for Situated Practices: Mezzanine
Hosted at Mezzanine, a hybrid creative space in South Bermondsey, the exhibition is deeply embedded in London’s peripheral art ecology. As a former industrial area now populated by artist-run initiatives and independent studios, South Bermondsey offers an alternative to the capital’s hyper-commercialised art circuits. Mezzanine is more than a venue—it functions as a living site for experimentation, dialogue, and residencies.
This spatial context informs the exhibition’s open-ended structure and its emphasis on process over product, negotiation over closure.
Artistic Scope: Material, Memory, and Mediation
The exhibition features a constellation of practitioners whose work navigates between disciplines, materials, and semantic registers. From sculptural constructions and sensory installations to digital transfers and wearable interventions, the artists explore how meaning is embedded in material, challenged through form, and reshaped by context.
Some artists are deeply rooted in London’s local networks, while others bring transnational perspectives shaped by mobility and cultural hybridity. Collectively, they share a critical awareness of how the object, once fixed and finite—is now volatile, performative, and entangled with larger systems of identity, technology, and memory.
The exhibition foregrounds approaches that question:
- How do everyday materials accrue symbolic power?
- What role does the body play in reanimating objects?
- How can objecthood serve as a site of resistance, memory, or re-enchantment?
Beyond Categories: An Open System of Meaning
Rather than prescribing a thematic narrative, Substance & Recoding operates as an open system, where objects do not submit to interpretation, but invite relational thinking. Meaning here is not delivered; it is co-produced between the artist, the work, the spatial environment, and the viewer’s own embodied perception.
By displacing fixed readings and encouraging interpretive plurality, the exhibition reflects a broader shift in contemporary art: from monologue to dialogue, from structure to system, from form to encounter.
