Residual:What Never Stays

Every act of making is shaped by things that may never become part of what we finally see. Materials are used and discarded, structures appear and disappear, processes leave traces, and relationships form around the things we create, use and encounter. Residual: What Never Stays turns attention to these often overlooked presences. Rather than treating the residual simply as waste or something left behind, the exhibition considers it as evidence of what has taken place: a material trace, a temporary structure, a memory, a gesture, a relationship, or a process of change. Curated by Jiayin Lu, the exhibition brings together artists and designers from different countries and backgrounds, each approaching the idea of the residual through their own experiences, materials and ways of working. Together, the works consider how things are formed, altered, remembered and eventually disappear. Presented by LILIS LAB at Calder Contemporary, Residual asks us to pay closer attention not only to what remains, but to everything that had to exist for something else to take shape. What disappears so that something else can stay?