Where The Lost Things Go

“I gave each spot a meaning, and as I populated it with the things I have been given to remember, the cell began to grow'. — Hari Kunzru

Where The Lost Things Go is Pei-Chi Lee’s first solo exhibition in London. As the result of the Batch.Space’s ChangeMaker Residency – a young creative community in the heart of East London – the artist unveils an immersive display of self-discovery. From a playful perspective, the artwork is a tangible representation of navigating transitory moments.

Using the technique of engraving on hand-made concrete pavements, the installation is both a physical and metaphorical manifesto of the concept of non-place.

Non-place, a term coined by the anthropologist Marc Augé to describe those places of transience that are not important enough to be considered as 'places', and where human-being stay nameless. Lee interprets this term into the diagram below:

Location Location

Place (non-place) Place

A -------------------> B

Mental State Mental State

Time Time

In the age of uncertainty where everything is in flux , Where The Lost Things Go wants to preserve a moment in time and a ‘moment in mind’. The work celebrates, or mourns, nameless progress and transitory moments we unconsciously go through. From repetitive commutes and endless experiments that seem unfruitful to fading romances, these instances are both intimate and public. We share them individually and collectively.

In this work, Lee uses aggregates that were made from segmented failure samples, and stones that she collected on her way to the studio from home as the concrete base. Mixed into cement and cast into moulds that form ‘picture slabs’. The slabs are the collective stories, built from interviews of people’s experiences with “Non-Place” then threaded into a storyline. Lee turns to the making process as an act of documentation, a practice of being present and a performance that interrogates toxic productivity.

While the concrete slabs are arranged coordinately to the floor, the graphics images become a continuous story that can be interpreted individually and collectively - It’s solid, it’s quiet, it’s still nameless, but yet it’s there.

About Pei-Chi Lee

Pei-Chi Lee is a Taiwan-born, UK-based multidisciplinary artist.

Her work explores how culture and daily infrastructure shapes human behaviour. With a focus on the relationship between play and wellbeing, her work displays movement in different forms, using different media from textile, drawing, sculpture to installation, to suggest a new way of thinking, and look at our everyday experiences from multiple perspectives.

Lee received an MA in Textiles from the Royal College of Art, London in 2019. Her work has since been exhibited nationally and internationally, and has worked on several projects, workshops and talks on the concept of playfulness and well-being’s strong relationship, in different contexts.

Her recent selected exhibitions include London Craft Week (2022), Matadero MediaLab, Spain (2022), SESAM Poliklinika, Ukraine (2021), Museum of Fiber Art, Taiwan (2020), and TIFA Working Studios, India (2019). Lee takes part in a number of ongoing collaborations including with the artist duo LEAP THEN LOOK on the PLAY INTERACT EXPLORE project, which will result in a participatory installation at Towner Gallery Eastbourne in March 2023.

About Batch.Space

Batch.space is an independent work space in East London offering a unique mix of facilities to nurture a vibrant and diverse community of people working across creative disciplines. Our space is versatile and inclusive. We are working together to make a place that welcomes anybody that is interested in being part of our community and wants to roll up their sleeves and get creative.