On the occasion of her Whitechapel Gallery exhibition, the Korean-Canadian artist talks to Tatler about feminine power, death, mourning, and hybrid identities
For the past few years, Korean Canadian artist Zadie Xa has been exploring the afterlife through her art. “I think the main reason for this is because of the Covid [situation] we’re currently living in,” says Xa upon reflection. “We haven’t had a chance to fully acknowledge what’s happened or mourn properly.” Death, grief and remembrance have been occupying her mind and consequently materialising in her work.
Shrines, shamans and characters adapted from Korean folklore find themselves centre stage at Xa’s exhibition House Gods, Animal Guides and Five Ways 2 Forgiveness at Whitechapel Gallery in London, a show that reflects on the loss and upheaval experienced during the pandemic. It opened to the public on September 20, a day after Queen Elizabeth II’s historic funeral, an outcome that isn’t lost on Xa.
“It’s so weird; believe me, I know,” says the artist, standing in the ground-level gallery where her work is on view; a room that used to be the Whitechapel library. “It’s been a strange atmosphere these past few days.”
Founded in 1901, Whitechapel Gallery was established to bring great art from around the world to the people of east London. Now the institution is internationally renowned for staging critically acclaimed contemporary art exhibitions and extensive public programming. Xa was invited by the gallery’s curator Laura Smith to create a show in one of the gallery spaces. For Xa, the space’s history evoked ideas of ghosts and lent itself to a show that traces past presences. The sentiments associated with the high-profile death flood into the gallery, adding to those in the works of the artist, to whom the room—which while high-ceilinged, enjoys minimal natural light—felt like a crypt. The initial idea for the show came from thinking of the room as a liminal space; “a journey into a dreamscape, the underworld or to death”, as the artist puts it.
Xa’s personal experience of loss is represented by two puppets modelled after her dogs, hanging from the ceiling near the gallery entrance. The one on the left is her French bulldog Chicho, who died of cancer in 2018; the one on the right is Fizzgigmo, her current pet.