◦ rope in action, 2023
at centre 151, london
rope in action is a site-responsive installation occupying the hallway of centre 151, made using ropes of differing materials and colours — sisal, cotton, and braided nylon in red, blue, and yellow — connected through rigging hardware and hand-wound rope ends. chen used the hallway's existing anchoring points to weave the ropes into a network that traces the geometry of the space, cutting across stairwells and corners.
centre 151 was established in 1984 by refugees from vietnam, laos, and cambodia in the years following the fall of saigon, when an estimated three million people fled vietnam by sea. formerly st. mary's church hall on whiston road, the building became a focal point for the settlement of vietnamese "boat people" into british society, and continues to operate today as a community centre for hackney's south east asian communities.
the piece extends the material interests of chen's ongoing hardware archive: each junction in the network is held by an off-the-shelf fitting repurposed here as both structural support and visual anchor, the same anonymous, semi-finished hardware the archive collects put to load-bearing use.
the installation was commissioned by vickie hayward of company, place for the british council's uk/viet nam season 2023. photography by yesenia thibault picazo.
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