NEVEN presents an offsite performance of Hongxi Li’s Sandcastle, 2024, at The Stage development in Shoreditch, in conjunction with Li’s forthcoming solo Heaven Green which opens at NEVEN’s gallery space on 26 September.  

Sandcastle is a 30-minute performance exploring land possession and urbanisation through Jolene, Li’s fictional persona. A child-sized handcrafted garden gate leads into a pit filled with one ton of soil, partially recycled from a construction site, in which Jolene takes up position, holding a metal bucket. Dressed in generic corporate attire and a formal hairstyle, Jolene materialises as the fungible agent of various systems of authority across Li’s live works, from schoolmistress to receptionist to surveillant in turn. The performance starts with a whistle-blow from an onlooking supervisor. The bucket reveals itself to be the mould of a brutalist housing block, an architectural style evocative of the residential towers built en masse across China during its early 2000s real estate boom. As Jolene moulds the soil into a miniature cityscape, her simple, repetitive actions at once recall those of a child building sandcastles at the beach while also invoking the industrially mechanised processes of mass urban development in China which are characterised by replication and standardisation. As time ticks, bringing the supervisor gradually closer to the pit, Jolene races against the clock to populate the pit with as many structures as possible, the pressure causing some of the dirt buildings to collapse or crumble in her wake. 

Taking place at The Stage Shoreditch, a mixed residential and commercial development still under construction, the performance reckons with the legacy of mass urbanisation in Li’s native China over the past few decades, which represents one of the most dramatic demographic shifts in human history. Since the late 1970s, China’s urban population has grown from around 18% to over 60% today, with hundreds of millions moving from rural areas to cities in search of better opportunities. To accommodate this influx, China embarked on a rapid construction spree, building entire cities at an unprecedented pace. However, the speed and scale of the project catalysed significant compromises, such as infrastructure quality, environmental degradation, and increased vulnerability to natural disasters, as exemplified by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake disaster, which resulted in over 87,000 deaths, largely due to the collapse of poorly constructed buildings, including schools, hospitals, and residential complexes. The “tofu-dreg projects,” as they were called, became a symbol of the vulnerabilities in China’s rapid urbanisation model, where speed and cost-cutting often took precedence over safety and durability.

In Sandcastle, Jolene plays God – or real estate developer – as she rapidly builds up a new skyline from the ground up, imaging the privatisation of land and the swift transformation of natural landscapes into urban environments in real-time. Her fragile and precarious buildings call to mind the tofu-dreg projects and speak to the double-edged sword of China’s rapidly changed landscape, which fueled economic growth and modernisation while also exposing vulnerabilities in infrastructure, sustainability, and ethics. Sandcastle convolutes the human impulse to expand, highlighting the complexities implicit in received notions of “progress” in contemporary society. As the final whistle blow is heard, Jolene exits, her once pristine uniform now smeared with dirt, leaving her new little city to its fate. 

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Hongxi Li, Sandcastle, 2024
Duration 30 minutes
Performed by Hongxi Li and Sangyoon Chung
Movement consultancy by Sarah Daukes
Lighting by Joe Hunt
With thanks to The Stage Shoreditch and Galliard Homes Limited

HONGXI LI (b. 1996, Xiamen, China) explores the confluence of corporate influence, power dynamics, and emotional discomfort through sculpture and performance. Her work compounds capitalist critique with humour—manifested through instances of inefficiency, repetition and failure —to examine the experience of individuality within broader social and economic systems. This inquiry is fuelled by her dual perspective as an East Asian woman living in the West, her Chinese identity and migrant experience both contributing to an interest in “in-betweenness.”

Across metalwork, woodwork, casting and upholstery, Li’s sculptural works blend industrial techniques with contemporary minimalism in objects that resemble everyday, mass-produced consumer items, inviting viewers to reassess the familiar and consider how design has historically reflected societal change. In her performances, Li embodies Jolene, a character dressed in corporate attire and formal hairstyle. Jolene’s non-specific yet professional uniform sees the character embody various positions of authority across Li’s live works, with Li seeking to embody and in turn satirise the institutions of power that her sculptural work seeks to question.

Li has been the subject of solo shows at Harlesden High Street, London (2022) and V.O Curations, London (2022), both curated by Martin Mayorga and Vanessa Murrell, and has been included in group presentations at Hybrid Art Fair, Madrid (2023); 9 French Place, London (2023); Kupfer Project, London, curated by Laurie Barron, Isabel Davies and Isabel Walter (2023); The Residency Gallery, London (2022); Generation and Display, London (2022); Kant Garage, Berlin (2022); Lecce Art Week, Lecce (2022); M50 Innovation Plus Art-space, Shanghai (2019); DATEAGLE ART, Online (2019); Tate Modern (Tate Exchange), London (2018) amongst others. She was the receipient of the Vice-Chancellor’s Achievement Scholarship at London’s Royal College of Art in 2023 and graduated from the MA Sculpture programme in 2024. She lives and works in London.

METAL Magazine