Week 10 | JiJu Collective : Weaving “Our Shell” at Summerhall

The culmination of Week 10 saw the opening of Our Shell at Summerhall, Edinburgh, a group exhibition curated by and featuring the Ji Ju Collective. Moving beyond a mere display of objects, the project functioned as a critical inquiry into the “hermit crab” condition: the constant negotiation of identity, memory, and domesticity within the precarious “shells” of a migratory life.

1.Collective Action as Method: From Theory to Site

Our exhibition navigated the tension between cultural roots and the “temporary shells” we inhabit while living abroad. By using red threads to physically connect disparate works, from traditional Qipao to contemporary paintings, we transformed a static gallery room into a living, interconnected organism.

This approach resonates with Miwon Kwon’s discourse on the evolution of site-specificity. She argues that the “site” has shifted from a fixed physical location to a discursive, mobile network:

” The final ‘site’ or frame for art reception and dissemination in this appraisal is no less than the artist–producer and the sometimes transitive and site-less communities of the early 21st century. “(Kwon 2005, 372)

By framing our collective as a “site-less community,” we demonstrated that curatorial practice can create a sense of belonging that is not tied to a specific geography, but to shared experience and “material as a way of thinking.”

2.The Ethics of the “Ordered Appearance”

While the final exhibition presented a unified narrative of “belonging,” the behind-the-scenes reality involved intense negotiation. Reflecting on this, I found Jean-Paul Martinon’s perspective on curatorial ethics particularly grounding:

“Curating is famous for an ordered appearance that on quick inspection is always flawed. Exhibitions always give the impression of cohesion when in fact what is exhibited is often the result of many compromises, concessions, and trade- offs between institutions,funders, lenders, contexts, and/or artists.” (Martinon 2020, xxii).

This “flawed cohesion” was evident in how we balanced individual artistic voices within the Ji Ju Collective. For my final project, I will embrace these “compromises” not as failures, but as an ethical method of sourcing and displaying artists, ensuring that the tension between different materialities remains visible rather than smoothed over.

3.Inspiration for My Personal Project

The success of Our Shell has deeply informed my final curatorial proposal. Specifically, the way we utilized red threadas a low-cost, high-impact spatial device demonstrated to me how “publicness can be negotiated within economic constraints.” For my personal project, I will further develop this “relational materiality”using physical connections to guide the audience’s gaze and bridge the gap between “art jargon” and lived reality. Seeing how viewers engaged with the “Sweetness within the Shell” (the candy installation) confirmed that accessibility is best achieved through familiar, tactile objects.

Bilingual poster for "Our Shell" exhibition with a red shell sketch.

The Visual Identity: The red shell symbolizes the “temporary home” we occupy.

Bilingual poster for "Our Shell" exhibition with a red shell sketch. Celebrations chocolates arranged in tree-like forms on a pillar. Traditional Chinese garments (Qipao/Tangzhuang) displayed on a white wall. Small paintings with labels hung by red strings.