KehTing
客厅/Kètīng/living room
Chinese word KehTing/客厅 translates to living room in English. However, the literal meaning of living room is a space for living, while the literal meaning KehTing/客厅 is a space for hosting guests. The definitions are over-simplified, yet in each culture this space in a home embodies much more.
Living between English and Chinese speaking cultures, Jiayi Hou and Yumu Huo found themselves relating to both of these meanings. The Los Angeles based curators met during their Master’s program in curatorial practice and co-founded KehTing – a curatorial collective that extends their living room as an exhibition space to host guests – artists and friends who create and thrive through art.
The physical exhibition space is flexible – anywhere can be a KehTing. KehTing aspires to cultivate non-institutional exhibition spaces to experiment diverse mediums, subjects, emotions, and ideas.
KehTing is currently at Eightfold Coffee.
If you have any decoration plans, please let us know.
Who’s in KehTing?
Jiayi Hou
Curator, co-founder
Jiayi is originally from Beijing and now lives in Los Angeles. Being a part of the Chinese diaspora and having drifted through different cities around the world, she always comes back to think about what belonging and understanding means in the contemporary world. To her, art is a way to embody the abstract sense of belonging while exposing existing communication barriers.
As a curator, she is interested in curating spaces for empathy, especially for liminal experiences out of standard social and linguistic constructs. Some thoughts currently on her mind are about lost-in-translation, semiotics, nostalgia, and the smell of the balcony of her kindergarten classroom which she met again at a perfume shop just recently.
Yumu Huo
Curator, co-founder
Wuhan roots, now branching out in Los Angeles. With a foundational background in music production and a dynamic range in dance, from freestyle to choreography, Yumu explores the profound relationship between sound and body movement within the sphere of contemporary art.
When it comes to curating, she likes to bring sensory experiences such as touch, hearing, and smell to the forefront because they are not only simple perceptions but also vessels that carry memories. "Please feel free to try out different combinations of your music playlist and your perfumes to start your day. You’ll feel something different.”
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