— “for those of us who live at the shoreline”(Audre Lorde, A Litany for Survival)
huiyin zhou + Laura Dudu
“辫（biān）” means to braid. “彼岸（bǐ àn）” literally translates as “the shore across,” but in Buddhism it also means another world — one reached through transcendence. The two words share the same syllables in Chinese, but differ in tone and meaning. The latter almost inhales a pause — in between — like the crossing itself: the shore, the arrival/ departure, the liminal space. That moment of transcendental suspension, like a plane pausing briefly on the runway between landing and takeoff. Both wor(l)ds gesture toward transformation through encounters. Like the act of grafting in agriculture, this exhibition, rather than telling, wants to meet.
Through photography, family archives, ephemera, writing, collage, installation, and participatory art, 辫（biān) /彼岸（bǐ àn）embraces both the artists and their works as at once the shore and the water. The standing shores — individual legacies of (im)migration and wars their families endured — are braided by tender waters: the intimacy and care they share as collaborators and chosen family.
Here, the boundary between land and water is not fixed. The shoreline is never static nor linear, but cared with fluidity: wave, water, crossing, merging. When we look closely, it touches our feet — tickling, grounding. When we gaze from afar, it becomes the horizon. A space of transcendence. Of becoming.
On View: August 1 - September 28, 2025, Gallery One, Artspace
Exhibition Page https://artspacenc.org/shorelines/
This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.
Related Programming
First Friday + Exhibition Opening – FRI August 4, 4-10pm, free
Artist Tour – SAT August 30, 1-3pm, free
First Friday – FRI September 5, 4-10pm, free
Threading Memories: Text & Image as Creative Archiving – SAT September 20, 1-4pm (ticketed)
Artist Talk + Closing Reception – SAT September 27, 4-7pm, free
