In our 4th annual international pairing, Cement Fondu presents Soul Seeker: Shana Moulton X Min Wong, an exhibition that explores the relationship between consumerism, self-care and the search for spirituality.

Feeling evermore poignant following the lockdowns of COVID-19, the artists present installations that channel common anxieties and desires relating to isolation, longing and belonging. In their works, familiar yet surreal scenarios are characterised by the objects and activities of everyday life, and reflect a shared drive to personal improvement that is deeply embedded in the day-to-day and normalised in conceptions of self. Relatable, humorous and profound, their works embrace a mundane desire for a better life that plays out in quests for meaning and validation.

New York based artist Shana Moulton uses video, sculptural installation and performance to evoke a sometimes claustrophobic domestic world inhabited by her alter ego Cynthia, who suffers from hypochondria and agoraphobia. Through Cynthia’s interactions with new age paraphernalia and animated encounters within her home and natural surroundings, Moulton paints a picture of a woman both trapped and comforted by the walls of domesticity; confined by phobias and anxieties yet freed through escapes from reality.   

Commissioned by Cement Fondu, Sydney-based Min Wong presents a major new installation, Lone Wolf, 2022, which explores contemporary metaphysical narratives, esoteric practices, ritual and the relationship of spiritual guru and seeker. Wong’s work is informed by her personal search for meaning through spirituality and fitness practices, and reflects diverse influences and lived experiences including Evangelistic Christianity in childhood and her Chinese father’s ritualistic practices as a Taoist. 

Lone Wolf will be Wong’s most ambitious work to date, creating an immersive environment that embodies and disrupts the architecture, equipment and ethos of exercise and wellness centres, adopting tropes drawn from the fitness ‘cult’ CrossFit and online spiritual leaders. The work also features video, and 3D rendered elements by artist and frequent collaborator Brie Trenerry. Through an ambivalent approach, which creates space for both cynicism and hope, Lone Wolf uniquely examines the conflicting dualities of contemporary spirituality. 

Highlighting the absurdity of our increasingly commodified bids for happier realities and more peaceful minds, these two artists simultaneously touch on the deep human desire to sense personal significance and belonging within the bigger picture.