Eight thousand layers of moments is a group exhibition that considers luck from a range of artists’ perspectives. Spanning multiple geographies and cultural positions, the artworks touch on aspects of chance, unpredictability, agency and control, and explore how these operate within artistic production. By asking the viewer to consider different interpretations of luck, the exhibition attempts to complicate an understanding of how luck intersects with place, privilege, history and language.

The exhibition title is borrowed from a line in Celine Song’s 2023 film Past Lives, in which the notion of isolated existence is challenged through a narrative informed by ‘inyeon’. In Korean Buddhism, inyeon (‘in’ (인/因) meaning “direct cause” and ‘yeon’ (연/緣) meaning “indirect cause”) provides an explanation as to why certain beings meet in certain places and times, and touches on notions of providence or fate. In the context of the exhibition, inyeon provides a way to talk about how multiple geographies and cultural framings meet, and how luck, as a human experience, is one way of making sense of chance events and consequences.

Eight thousand layers of moments is a collaboration between Doctoral students and alumni from the Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki, and Elam School of Fine Arts at Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland. The exhibition is one element of a wider exchange between the participating artists, which includes an experimental publication, and a reciprocal forthcoming exhibition in Helsinki.

Roomsheet & Floor Map