Yi Ten Lai (b.1996, Bailén, Spain) is a multidisciplinary artist exploring the transculturality of materials, sounds and symbols to question the notion of cultural and national belonging as a Spanish and Hongkongese descendant.

Rooted in the examination of contemporary iterations of traditional crafts and rites affiliated to her multicultural background as an integral modus operandi, Yi Ten Lai conjugates objectual pieces – such as drawings, decollages, oil paintings, ceramics and sound installations – with performative elements flirting with the rhetorics of rituals.

In the exhibition The Elsewhere that I Long for, the artist presents a body of works reflecting on cultural miscegenation and the elusiveness of her Asian heritage, questioning the contrast between essential identity and performative identity. The works altogether reflects a third space between East and West as a binary deconstruction questioning cultural identity at the intersection of alterity and belonging.

All images © of their respective owners.
Content taken from Tofu Collective in collaboration with Yi Ten Lai Fernandez, Graphic Design by WAAITT