Elsewhere (余所)  2025

23.9” × 19.7” (606mm × 500 mm)

Ink on Japanese paper

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Lin Mingjun

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What stays with me about Elsewhere is its quiet ambiguity.

The snails move slowly between the inside and outside of what initially appears to be a shoji screen, carrying shells that embody both protection and confinement. 

At first, the work seems to revolve around boundaries. Between the self and the outside world. Between safety and freedom. Between belonging and distance.

Yet, the longer I spend with it, the less certain those distinctions become.

What appears to be a shoji screen begins to feel less like a divider and more like a filter through which the world is perceived. 

Is the outside truly unfamiliar, or only imagined that way? Is the inside a place of certainty, or simply another version of the same uncertainty? The work never answers these questions, and I think that is precisely what makes it compelling. 

​This sense of instability is something I often find in Lin Mingjun’s work. Rather than presenting fixed meanings, the paintings create space for reflection, inviting viewers to reconsider the boundaries they take for granted. 

In a time when we are constantly encouraged to define ourself and our place in the world, I find something refreshing in a work that allows those lines to remain unresolved.