SHRINESHARE
6 - 15 JUNE 2025
Exeter Phoenix Presents, hosted by Positive Light Projects
184-187 Sidwell St, Exeter EX4 6RD
Open daily, 11am – 5.00pm. Entry is FREE.
Exeter Phoenix is pleased to present ShrineShare an exhibition that brings together sixteen artists from Malaysia, Thailand, the UK, and the US to share their visions of sacred shrines—be they ancient, personal, or imagined.
Hosted at our partner venue Positive Light Projects (Sidwell St, Exeter) it presents a hand-printed folio of the 16 participating artist’s ‘shrines’, along with an opportunity for visitors to create their own shrine images, prompted by the universal themes of the project.
The international team of curators, artists David Blandy (UK), Sharon Chin (MY) and Zedeck Siew (MY), posed this question; “In times of polycrisis, what do we hold sacred?” The artists were asked to think about what a Shrine, in any form, might mean today: datuk kongs; sacred wells; flowers left at places of tragedy; Geocities fansites.
They answered with their own images of personal sites of devotion - literal, imagined, figurative, true - from an arcade cabinet to a bike shed to a website. The resulting shrines were transformed into intentionally low-tech rubber stamps, from which a folio of sixteen handmade prints were made and shared, variously inspired by family and culture, found or genealogical; home and travel, in spirit or geographical; seeking and hope, in nature or in the digital realm.
Each hand-printed shrine image is framed by an ASCII-art design, which uses the aesthetic of the early internet, recalling its promise of unexpected, sincere, peer-to-peer connection. Sadly, that version of Internet is gone. Now we are shackled by the predatory mediation of ‘curated for you’ FYP algorithms, platform monopolies, subscription services. Read your End User License Agreements: where cloud capitalists own our dating patterns, our art, our fan pages.
So, we make our escape. We enact our peer-to-peer spirit in the material world. Think of this folio as a DVD we’ve burned just for you, that we’ve pressed in your actual hand. Open the file and connect to sixteen real persons; sixteen genuine acts of faith.
FEATURING SHRINES BY
Amze Emmons, US; Arif Rafhan, MY; Bethany Balan, MY; Betti Stong, MY; Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, UK; Daniel Locke, UK; David Blandy, UK; Hardeep Pandhal, UK; Jamie Oon Muxian, MY; Jesse Joy, MY; John Powell-Jones, UK; Nadhir Nor, MY;
Petra Szemán, UK; Ruangtup Kaeokamechun, TH; Rupa Subramaniam, MY; Shaifuddin Mamat @ Poodien, MY
The exhibition is supported by The British Council Connections Through Culture grant, an Arts Council England Project Grant.
It is hosted by Exeter Phoenix and Positive Light Projects and features as part of Art Week Exeter 2025 (9-15 June).
About the curators:
David Blandy is a UK based artist with an international, multi-disciplinary practice that uses performance, video, installation, role play and collaboration to deconstruct and reimagine our relationship to the world.
Sharon Chin is an internationally renowned artist, curator, and activist based in Malaysia; her work is in the permanent collections of Singapore Art Museum and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA).
Zedeck Siew was co-founder of Malaysian games studio Centaur Games in 2012 and co-created A Thousand Thousand Islands (2018 - 2023), a series of zines inspired by Southeast Asian mythistory.
About Exeter Phoenix:
Exeter Phoenix is a vibrant, world class multi-artform venue, home to several art galleries, music and theatre, cinema, film production resources, a radio station, print workshop and recording studios, all centred around a buzzing café bar. @exeter_phoenix exeterphoenix.org.uk
Exeter Phoenix, Bradninch Place, Gandy Street, Exeter, Devon. EX4 3LS
