Zadie Xa: Child of Magohalmi and the Echoes of Creation

A solo exhibition from Korean-Canadian artist Zadie Xa. 

Showcasing a major new multimedia project, Xa creates a sub-aquatic marine environment, inviting audiences to enter into an immersive world by way of atmospheric lighting, surround-sound, large-scale video projections, sculptures and costumes.

In 'Child of......',  Xa brings together imagined and learned Korean folklore, and within her immersive world, presents an origin story inspired by Korean creation myths, centered on the giant goddess Grandmother Mago (Magohalmi). Exploring the passing down of ancestral knowledge through matrilineal social structures - based on the separation of responsibilities between male and female deities in the creation of the universe - the work confronts the shift in status of Korean goddesses towards marginal deities. 

This work is a co-commission with Art Night, London, YARAT Contemporary Art Space Baku, Azerbaijan and De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill.

Performance, 26 October
Over the opening weekend the exhibition is activated by a  new performance by Zadie Xa as part of Dance International Glasgow. The work, which has the same title, has been developed in collaboration with Benito Mayor Vallejo and will be performed by Iris Chan, Jia-Yu Corti, Mary Feliciano and Yumino Seki.

About the Artist
Throughout her practice, Xa uses water and marine ecologies as metaphors for exploring the unknown, whilst also alluding to abstract notions of homeland, having grown up on the west coast of Canada. Often creating fantastical underwater realms, the exhibition features a large-scale, surround-sound video projection of the ocean and a pod of orcas - a theme which is then revisited in a series of sculptures. The final element of the exhibition comprises of costumes and masks originally used by the artist during performances at ArtNight and the Venice Biennale, now presented as sculptures at Tramway.

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This exhibition is curated in partnership with Helen Nisbet, Artistic Director, Art Night and Art Night Associate Curator Amy Budd. 

IMAGE : Zadie Xa, Child of Magohalmi and the Echos of Creation, Tramway (2019)
Installation photo by Keith Hunter