To Be Like Water

• 18/03/22

This group exhibition in TENT Rotterdam explores and enriches the meaning of code switching. Code switching was first used as a term in sociolinguistics to describe how people who are multilingual switch between languages in conversation. But code switching is also about how we adapt our way of speaking to a particular social group. In fact, it is about all the conscious and unconscious ways in which people project different cultural or linguistic identities depending on the situation. The exhibition revolves around a layered understanding of identity, with code switching as a manifestation of the multifaceted and fluid way in which identity functions within a social force field.

Participating artists: Jenny Brady, Robert Gabris, Ellen Gallagher, Jumana Manna, Jay Tan, Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Amy Suo Wu (in collaboration with Sami Hammana, Karen Huang, Sarafina Paulina Bonita and Sandim Mendes), Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Búrca and Katarina Zdjelar.

On view through May 22, 2022

photography: Aad Hoogendoorn