Gajah Gallery Manila presents Holding Structures, Soft Bodies, a group exhibition featuring rising artists Jemana Murti, Kayleigh Goh, and Sarah Choo Jing. Taking its departure from the familiar promise of structure, the exhibition considers how the frameworks that organise everyday life are shaped by the people, histories, and technologies that inhabit and transform them.
Holding Structures, Soft Bodies brings together sculpture, painting, photography, and video installations to examine how architectural, cultural, technological, and social structures are negotiated in everyday life, and what emerges as they shift.
Drawing from Balinese iconography, Jemana Murti uses Artificial Intelligence, 3D modelling, and digital fabrication to transform familiar cultural motifs. In several of his works, elements reminiscent of Balinese wood carvings—one of the island’s longstanding and revered art forms—appear as blurred, pixel-like forms, softened and partially obscured. His works reflect on the persistence and transformation of cultural identity within an increasingly globalised and technologically mediated landscape.
In Kayleigh Goh‘s paintings, architectural forms become a means of framing how places are remembered and experienced. Her compositions create a sense of familiarity and estrangement, evoking the comfort and stability associated with built environments while leaving room for uncertainty and impermanence.
Singaporean artist Sarah Choo Jing explores the quiet theatre of everyday urban life. Known for her video works, she examines the gaze of the flâneur, the dynamics of looking and being looked at, and the unspoken conventions that shape how people occupy shared spaces. Her work depicts recognisable moments and characters in contemporary urban society, suggesting a wealth of private, often solitary narratives. Through these encounters, Choo draws attention to the subtle ways people negotiate proximity, privacy, and connection within the spaces they share.
