Royal College of Art (group residency) / Linxia Li

photo Simon Beckmann

Royal College of Art (group residency) / Linxia Li / sculpture

Linxia Li’s practice spans printmaking, installation, and performance. At the core of her work is the method of “hacking” everyday order and established rules. By creating small ruptures within systems that are taken for granted yet rarely questioned, she want exposes the absurdities and contradictions embedded within them.

In Not a Word to Anyone, she uses her own body as the site of infiltration. By swallowing barium and undergoing an X-ray procedure, she places the work inside her body. The act of “swallowing” is often theatrically associated with keeping a secret; by playfully disrupting this metaphor, the work reflects on the contradictions and absurdity of “keeping secrets” within human relationships.

In Mangablommor – IKEA®, she inserts products bearing her own face onto IKEA shelves, blending them into the retail system. Customers who rely on brand structures to guide their consumption decisions unknowingly become participants in the work, which questions industrial standardisation and brand authority.

In her printmaking practice, she re-presents and alters popular online images in everyday contexts, removing them from their original circulation and placing them into lived situations. Through processes of translation and reproduction, these images acquire new interpretations and meanings.

Linxia Li tends to enter existing structures through intervention rather than confrontation, using mimicry and subtle shifts to allow the rules themselves to become visible.

In partnership with the Royal College of Art, this group residency at Joya: AiR was curated by guest artist Annie Edwards (GBA 26, MA RCA, BFA) www.annieedwards.com