The Distance of Listening - Wang Siyuan at “Someone Like You”

From 9 May to 30 June 2025, the Garage Museum at the Pudong Cultural and Arts Guidance Centre in Shanghai hosted Someone Like You, a contemporary art exhibition that follows on from the 2024 show Who Am I. While the earlier exhibition reflected on questions of self-identity, this year’s iteration turns its focus to emotional resonance and the sense of isolation that persists in the age of digital hyper-connectivity. Bringing together 130 works by 41 invited artists and 77 emerging creators, the exhibition spans painting, installation, video, and digital media, unfolding across the Garage Museum, the Pin Art Gallery, and the West Hall to create a layered, immersive viewing experience.

Among the works responding to the exhibition’s central theme of emotion, Wang Siyuan’s The Distance of Listening stands out for its synthesis of surrealist imagery and expanded painting. The piece reimagines babies and rabbits — symbols of fragility and silence — into fictionalised forms, placed in close proximity yet with eyes closed and no interaction. This visual arrangement reflects a familiar condition of contemporary urban life: apparent closeness masking emotional distance and the guarding of personal privacy.

The recurring motif of earphones encapsulates a dual psychological state — a “refusal to communicate” intertwined with a “desire for understanding.” Extending from the composition, a red ribbon acts as a visual metaphor for the flow of emotion and the potential for connection, suggesting that even within isolation, contact remains possible. To deepen the earphones’ role as an emotional metaphor, Wang incorporates plush fabric into the work, evoking the tactile sensation of wearing headphones or receiving a hug. This material dimension not only reinforces the link between earphones and emotional comfort but also pushes beyond the limits of traditional two-dimensional painting, inviting a direct, sensory interaction between work and viewer.

Within the context of Someone Like You, The Distance of Listening becomes an immersive exploration of emotional space. Through its surreal figures, metaphorical elements, and tactile extensions, the work constructs a field that is at once enclosed and yearning for connection — an invitation for the audience to reconsider their relationships with both objects and people, and to reflect on the distances, literal and emotional, that shape them.