At the entrance of Bedroom, a multidisciplinary space located on the top floor of an industrial building in Kowloon, was an instruction. Affixed to the white door was a nondescript metal sign imprinted with the command “PULL” above an elongated bar handle. Yet visitors found that the door could only be opened with a push.

Masquerading as commonplace signage, Give and Take was one of the nine works (all works 2019) that made up Chris Shen’s solo exhibition at Bedroom. By asking visitors to perform an action contradictory to the one required to enter the space, Shen suggests that physical connection can be an antidote to perceived ideological conflicts. This notion was also embodied in the exhibition’s title, “Cold Hands, Warm Heart,” which appropriates a popular adage describing a person who appears aloof externally but defies preconceptions to be unexpectedly cordial. 

The possibilities of physical contact were further investigated in other pieces such as Touch. Printed onto tracing paper, the work lists exemplary sentences from online dictionaries expounding on the multiple connotations associated with the word “touch.” With these constructed scenarios, evoked through text, Shen evinces the mutability of the word’s various meanings, and explores its role across diverse social settings and in interpersonal relationships. 

The last work in the show, Tears in Rain, is an assemblage described by the artist as “a sad work about the motions of time.” A transparent tank of water is connected to a rain shower head, which drips intermittently onto the heated surface of a halogen lamp. Shen’s setup refers to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which theorizes that entropy is invariably decreasing because energy will always flow from hot to cold. This one-directional equation is commonly extended to the concept of time in scientific writing, and by alluding to this, Shen tendered an existential commentary on bleak climate prospects and the unfortunate truth of how all present moments are held hostage to time. 

Admittedly, Tears in Rain felt tangentially detached from the rest of the exhibition’s narrative, which was mostly centered around an inquiry into the physical relationships we share with certain inanimate objects and our trust in them. Despite this disconnect, Shen’s works and their messages are warranted in an epoch where technological species increasingly inhabit both our public and private domains. Ultimately, the success of “Cold Hands, Warm Heart” lay in its ability to provoke essential questions about mutual coexistence.