Artist Talk, Silent Echoes

Venue: INSTINC Space, 39 Keppel Rd, #03-10 Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065

Exhibition Duration: 28 May to 7 June 2026 | Wed-Fri, 1PM-7PM. Sat - Sun, 1PM-6PM

Opening Reception: 27 May 2026 (Wed.), 5:30PM–8:30PM

Artist Talk: 30 May 2026 (Sat), 3-4PM

Silent Echoes is a series of risograph prints by French Polish artist Alexandre Levi (Alek), developed from photographs taken in Hakodate, Japan. The project began with the artist’s encounter with an akiya—an abandoned house—and reflects on places shaped by departure and migration. These environments resonated with Levi’s own experience of living between countries and form the starting point of the series. The works are based on photographs of an akiya, an abandoned house, one among more than 8.5 million across Japan, now representing over 13 percent of the nation’s housing stock. An akiya often comes into being when families move to larger cities for work, when houses are left behind after the death of relatives, or when the cost of upkeep makes them unsustainable. In Hakodate, a historic port city on the island of Hokkaido, population decline has left many homes vacant, turning them into echoes of shifting demographics and urban transition.

The works focus on overlooked fragments: letterboxes bound with bandages, taped windows, faint shadows. These details are not incidental; they are signs of lives once lived, of structures gradually slipping from care into absence. For Levi, they also echo the moment when a place shifts from lived space to memory.

Risography, traditionally associated with zines, posters and graphic ephemera, becomes here both medium and metaphor. Known for its grainy textures, slight shifts in alignment, and limited but vibrant palettes, risography carries with it the energy of immediacy, repetition and accessibility. By recontextualizing this process within fine art, Alek turns its visual qualities into a way to echo the fragility, persistence and layered history of the abandoned houses he depicts.

Printed in carefully chosen palettes, sometimes a single tone and sometimes layered in two colors such as neon pink and aqua blue, the images detach themselves from naturalistic color to heighten form, texture and atmosphere. The risograph process amplifies traces of repair, distortion and decay, transforming them into vivid surfaces of meaning.

Silent Echoes reflects on continuity, migration and memory. Through fragments of abandoned houses and their surrounding environments, the works consider how places remain present even after people move on. For Levi, whose life has unfolded across several countries, these spaces resonate with the experience of departure and the lingering connection to places once called home. It reflects on forgotten moments and on how houses remain as witnesses to urban change and social transition. Abandonment here is not disappearance but resonance: proof of resilience, reminders of care, and records that echo through the shifting landscape of urban evolution.

About Artist

Alek (Alexandre Levi, born 1984) is a French Polish artist based in Berlin whose practice brings together photography, risograph printing, mixed media painting and drawing, ceramics, and scent. With a background in visual communication and design in Germany and France, he graduated in Fashion and Design from IFM (Institut Français de la Mode, Paris) in 2010, after earning a Master of Engineering from ECL (École Centrale de Lyon) in 2009.

Alek has presented his work internationally, with exhibitions in Bangkok, Seoul, Berlin, Tokyo, Sydney, and New York City.

His work reflects on presence and what follows. His artistic vocabulary is shaped by growing up queer in Paris’s 19th arrondissement in the 1990s, an area reminiscent of Queens, as well as formative years in Japan and Thailand and his life in Berlin today.

About INSTINC Space

Founded in 2004 by artist Yeo Shih Yun, INSTINC is a leading artist-run institution based in Singapore. With a distinguished presence in the arts ecosystem, INSTINC diligently sustains the growth of contemporary art through exhibitions, residency programs and curations. Their esteemed Artist-in-Residence program has cultivated invaluable regional and international networks since 2009. INSTINC is celebrated for producing immersive, large-scale exhibitions that encompass installation, new media, performance, painting and sculpture, showcasing the diverse range of artistic expressions.

Notable collaborations include partnerships with renowned brands such as Volvo and Guinness, further demonstrating INSTINC's commitment to fostering cross-disciplinary exchanges. Moreover, INSTINC takes immense pride in organising the highly anticipated INSTINC D:Art Festival 2022, generously supported by UOB Bank and the NAC start fund.

INSTINC continues to foster creative individuals and collective practitioners by establishing a platform for cross-disciplinary exchanges with their relocation in Tanjong Pagar Distripark. With expertise in exhibition curation, commissioned works and brand alliances, INSTINC endeavours as a vital presence in the cultivation of contemporary art.

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