Shanghai-based artist Yu Ji presents her first solo exhibition in New York, "Origin of the Tiger," at P.P.O.W gallery from March 6 to April 11, 2026. The show features multimedia sculptures and installations made during a self-organized residency in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where she collaborated with Khmer artisans and local children through the project PKA (PLAY KNOW ATTENTION). Works incorporate reed mats, concrete knees, snail shells, and modular furniture, emphasizing joints, fragmentation, and reassembly.
The exhibition matters because it marks Yu Ji's New York debut and highlights her shift from corporeal concrete works toward lighter, more itinerant practices that foreground process, sociality, and cross-cultural collaboration. By integrating handmade elements from Cambodia and exploring themes of migration, rest, and communal gathering, the show reflects broader contemporary art trends around global mobility, participatory making, and the politics of materiality.