Screenshot: will my context appear in your dreams?
machine embroidery on pillowcase, pillow filling, 45 × 75 × 15 cm, edition of 5 in different colours, 2025
45 x 75 x 15 cm is the standard pillow size in China, distinct from European dimensions. The colourful Dacron fabric and frilled edge of the pillowcase recall a style fashionable in early 1980s China, when imported synthetic textiles from the West represented the height of modernity in domestic life. At that time, mothers often embroidered pillowcases with traditional motifs such as flowers or lovebirds, fusing intimate craft with collective aspirations toward modern living.
machine embroidery on pillowcase, pillow filling, 45 × 75 × 15 cm, edition of 5 in different colours, 2025
45 x 75 x 15 cm is the standard pillow size in China, distinct from European dimensions. The colourful Dacron fabric and frilled edge of the pillowcase recall a style fashionable in early 1980s China, when imported synthetic textiles from the West represented the height of modernity in domestic life. At that time, mothers often embroidered pillowcases with traditional motifs such as flowers or lovebirds, fusing intimate craft with collective aspirations toward modern living.
Here, the embroidery instead presents two lines of bilingual text: “我的故事會出現在你夢中嗎? / Will my context appear in your dreams?” Positioned like film subtitles (all the pirate films you’ve watched as a teenager), the text addresses the viewer directly, transforming the pillowcase into a screen of dream machine.
The work questions whether stories embedded in global trade and household objects can be perceived beyond their commodity form. Products usually circulate stripped of their history, appearing as mute surfaces: the pillow insists on its own story, inviting the audience to dream not only on the object, but also of it.
The work questions whether stories embedded in global trade and household objects can be perceived beyond their commodity form. Products usually circulate stripped of their history, appearing as mute surfaces: the pillow insists on its own story, inviting the audience to dream not only on the object, but also of it.
Installation view at the show “ Foreign Trade Store” in RADAR, Nov 2025 - Feb 2026, curated by Kiana Tellen
Photo by LWL/Hanna Neander
Photo by LWL/Hanna Neander