PROJECT     EXHIBITION       FILM       PUBLICATION      EVENT


HOW MUCH WATTAGE IS ONE HANDBREADTH OF WATER?


Solo Exhibition
Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, United States
January 25–April 26, 2025

An imperceptible water level drop of one handbreadth, about three inches, occurs in Thailand’s Vajiralongkorn Reservoir when the dam releases water daily to generate electricity for a transnational energy grid. Before the dam’s construction four decades ago, this site was a forest that was home to the indigenous Karen Hill Tribe. This exhibition traces the complex relationship between transnational energy networks and indigenous communities in order to unsettle the cultural imaginaries evoked by these infrastructures and their iconic locales. Jingru (Cyan) Cheng and Chen Zhan use Jewel Rain Vortex, an indoor waterfall at Singapore’s Changi Airport, as a case study for how one might be able to draw these hydroelectric connections. Here, water is portrayed as a multifaceted force: a source of life, a disruptor, a tool of displacement, and a connector of distant lands.

A newly commissioned immersive film installation focuses on the sensorial contrast between experiencing the spectacle of the Jewel waterfall and the pulse of the Vajiralongkorn Dam Reservoir. Alongside field documentation of hydroelectric infrastructures, the artists recontextualise the energy flows and reconnect them with the source, thus collapsing the material processes and distance between the sites. In dialogue with the film, the artists have crafted a live feedback instrument mediated by raw aluminium. The resulting soundscape offers a sonic response to the friction between these energetic landscapes. Through this constellation, Jingru (Cyan) Cheng and Chen Zhan transform the gallery into a site of contemplation on energy, extractivism, and cultural entanglements. 
LINKS

Read Exhibition Newsprint Watch ‘Drifting Bodies’ [4-channel film]
Listen ‘The Humming of the Power Grid’ [sound installation]

EVENT
     Swamp Sumit: Dirt and Water, Dia Chelsea, New York, US. 2025


PUBLICATION
    Conversation with Lucia Pietroiusti, ‘Walking into the black box with a flashlight’,  in Swamplands Reader, 2025

    Essay ‘Hydroelectric Sensibility’, in 100 Words for Water: A Projective Ecosocial Vocabulary, 2025


MEDIA
    Brooklyn Rail exhibition review:  The Body Electric, 2025

    Frieze exhibition review: How a Floating Community and a Luxury Waterfall Are Connected by a Power Grid, 2025

    KoozArch interview: Ripple, Traces, Drifts:  Jingru (Cyan) Cheng and Chen Zhan on process-oriented practice, 2025

CREDITS

Exhibition organised by the Storefront team
Lead Curators:  Jessica Kwok and Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa
Exhibition producer: Eduardo Meneses
Graphic design: Estudio Herrera
Installation photography: Luis Corzo
Sound Design in collaboration with Shuoxin Tan
Fieldwork in Thailand and Laos facilitated by PuPla Kaewprasert 


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This exhibition is part of Swamplands, Storefront’s year-long research project and exhibition series that explores the ethical and technical entanglements of water. Using swamps as a conceptual framework, the series examines the ecological and socioeconomic intricacies at the threshold between land and water. 



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