In a city engineered for smooth circulation, of people, data, and capital, Alliance arrives as a quiet interruption. The exhibition marks Shuang Li’s first solo presentation in Southeast Asia and unfolds at Kim Association, a new project space in Singapore dedicated to transnational Asian practices. Anchored in Li’s recent work with storm chasing and livestreamed weather phenomena, the exhibition considers how contemporary life is shaped by forces that are at once distant and omnipresent, spectacular yet strangely abstract.

This interview brings together Li and Alan Lo, co-founder of the Yenn and Alan Lo Foundation, which established Kim Association as a site for focused, experimental engagements with artists working across borders. Speaking from their respective positions as artist and patron, they reflect on mediated witnessing, infrastructural systems, and the conditions of making and supporting art in an age defined by speed, instability, and constant transmission. Read the interviews in full below:

Bakchormeeboy: Alliance began with storm chasing. What first drew you to it, and when did you realize it could become a metaphor for how we live today?

Shuang Li: I was initially drawn to storm chasing because it’s so romantic – one is chasing nothing but the wind. It felt like a metaphor the moment I came across a storm chasing livestream on Tiktok, when I was in my own spiral. These days the media landscape feels flat while we as individuals get sucked into different spirals from time to time. I believe the term social media bubble that was coined around 10 years ago has now evolved into individual spirals.

Bakchormeeboy: You grew up in the Wuyi Mountains with pirated media as your window to the world… How do you see those early internet experiences shaping how you think about borders, distance, and access now?

Shuang Li: Pirated media was my first experience of the world feeling close and porous. Geography didn’t really matter — music, films, subcultures just appeared on my screen, detached from their original contexts. That shaped how I understand borders as something unstable and negotiable rather than fixed. Access was always unofficial, incomplete, and slightly distorted, but also incredibly formative. I think that early experience still informs how I move through digital and physical spaces today — never fully inside or outside, always navigating gaps and delays.

Bakchormeeboy: The exhibition references “non-spaces” like trainyards and high-speed rail. What do these in-between environments allow you to explore?

Shuang Li: Non-spaces interest me because they’re designed for movement rather than dwelling. You’re not meant to form memories there — yet you often experience very intense emotions in them: exhaustion, anticipation, disorientation. The flatten distinctions between arrival and departure. For me, these spaces become existential conditions rather than locations — places where identity and agency feel temporarily suspended, which mirrors how we experience digital environments as well.

Bakchormeeboy: Watching disasters unfold online has become almost routine. As an artist, how do you think about the ethics and emotional impact of witnessing catastrophe from a distance?

Shuang Li: It’s something I struggle with constantly. Repetition flattens intensity and creates emotional numbness. I also want to understand what it means to be affected without being present, and whether witnessing without agency produces a different kind of violence or exhaustion. Gaza saved the world from the illusion of the old system and existing world order.make the slightest sense. I believe artists should use their platform regardless.

Bakchormeeboy: Alliance evokes the sensation of being still while moving at extreme speed. Do you personally feel that tension in your own life, especially moving between Asia and Europe?

Shuang Li: Very much so. I feel it less as physical movement and more in daily interactions with mediated environments. Information, images, and events move at an incredible speed, yet my body remains relatively still — sitting, scrolling, watching. There’s a constant sense of acceleration without corresponding physical motion.

That imbalance creates a kind of suspension: mentally overstimulated, emotionally responsive, but physically paused. I’m always “present” to something happening elsewhere, while disconnected from where I actually am. That condition — of being continuously engaged yet strangely immobilized — is what the work tries to articulate, rather than the experience of travel itself.

Bakchormeeboy: Singapore is known for its efficiency and climate control. How did the city influence how you thought about presenting this work there?

Shuang Li: Singapore’s infrastructure is incredibly refined — it minimizes friction, heat, unpredictability, while my work is usually inspired by when the system fails or glitches. Presenting Alliance here made me think more sharply about how systems manage risk and instability. The work doesn’t oppose efficiency, but it tries to reveal the tensions underneath it: environmental precarity, constant circulation, and the quiet pressure of optimization. In that context, the work feels less speculative and more immediate.

Bakchormeeboy: Your practice spans many mediums. How do you decide which medium is right for a particular idea?

Shuang Li: Usually the idea already contains its own medium. Some thoughts need bodies, some need interfaces, some need fragments or repetition. When working with digital life, I’m less interested in choosing a single medium than in letting different formats collide — performance bleeding into video, architecture shaping perception and etc. The work often emerges from those frictions rather than from a clear hierarchy.

Bakchormeeboy: When viewers leave Alliance, what do you hope stays with them?

Shuang Li: I don’t hope for a clear message. I’m more interested in a lingering sensation — maybe a slight discomfort or heightened awareness of speed, mediation, or presence. Ideally, they carry a question back into daily life: Where am I actually positioned when I witness something? And what does it cost to always be in motion?

Bakchormeeboy: What motivated you and Yenn to establish the Foundation, and why was supporting transnational Asian artistic practices a priority from the beginning?

Alan Lo: Singapore has always been special place to both of us.  It’s where Yenn grew up and where my family business had business presence since the early 90s. So we’ve always wanted to find a way to give back to the Singapore community. And in 2022 we established the foundation to participate in SAM SEA Focus Art Fund as a founding sponsor for a commitment of 3 years.   As both of us have lived and worked abroad in the west, our experience resonate with the practice of transnational Asian artists that’s why we decided to shift our focus since 2022. 

Bakchormeeboy: Kim Association is intentionally small and experimental. What can intimate project spaces offer that larger institutions sometimes cannot?

Alan Lo: I guess with a smaller more intimate space lead us to focus on more in depth single artist presentation.  Singapore has no lack of large institutional spaces  so we felt that we can add to the diversity of the local art landscape.

Bakchormeeboy: Supporting artists like Shuang Li involves risk and trust. What do you look for when deciding to commission or support a project?

Alan Lo: We have a running list of more than 100 artists on the radar and are constantly in conversation with many of them.  We like the idea of presenting artists who have taken part in institutional projects and will be his or her first show in Singapore or SE Asia  

Bakchormeeboy: Alliance deals with seemingly abstract global systems such as media, climate, infrastructure. Why do you think these themes resonate so strongly today?

Alan Lo: In a world where digital information flow is almost taking over our lives, I feel that Shuang’s thesis is particularly relevant. And esp fitting for a place like Singapore where it is so driven by tech and innovation. 

Bakchormeeboy: The Foundation also supports institutional collections and long-term stewardship through initiatives like the SAM S.E.A Focus Art Fund. How do you balance experimentation with legacy-building?

Alan Lo: It’s really not about legacy building.  To us it’s always been identifying what Singapore and the region needs and try to take part or initiate projects that respond to the urgency.  

Bakchormeeboy: Singapore often positions itself as a global hub. How do you see its role evolving in conversations around contemporary Asian art?

Alan Lo: Singapore is such a diverse and international community. Being a melting pot of so may different  cultures, it’s perfectly positioned to act as a platform for conversations in the areas of transnational or asia diasporic  

Bakchormeeboy: As a patron rather than a curator or artist, how do you define your responsibility in shaping cultural dialogue without over-directing it?

Alan Lo: I’m not a curator and I don’t present to be one. I suppose owing to my involvement in a number of international institutions including MOCA LA, Guggenheim and Princeton University Art Museum, I see my role as a facilitator or connector in establishing co-commission or partnership opportunities.  

Bakchormeeboy: Looking ahead, what kind of impact do you hope the Foundation and spaces like Kim Association will have on artists and audiences in the region over the next decade?

Alan Lo: We are committed to continue to support the Singapore art ecosystem through funding as well as donation of artworks to the major SG institutions as well as opportunities to take Singapore artistic talents to the international stage.  And hopefully our modest effort can help kick start the interest within the community and more individuals will also participate! 

Photo Credit: Shuang Li, Alliance, 2026, installation view. Courtesy Kim Association and the artist. Photos by Chia Wei Ling

Shuang Li: Alliance runs from 21st January to 22nd March 2026 at Kim Association, Singapore. Private visits are available by appointment. More information available here