Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart, Portable Cities and ‘second skin’

Senior Curator Yung Ma and Southbank Centre Associate Artist Julia Cheng invite you to see the familiar in new ways, in this tour of our Hayward Gallery exhibition Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart.

The pair begin their exploration with what is perhaps the artist’s best known series, Portable Cities; a collection of material city-scape sculptures housed in suitcases. Xiuzhen is curious about what we choose to put in suitcases, and each one here represents a different place she has been, with a new one depicting her interpretation of London created specifically for Heart to Heart.

Ma and Cheng move on to the work from which the exhibition its name, A Heart to Heart (2025), the latest in a series of large installations made from steel frames and used clothes which represent human organs. Second-hand clothes are a material which Xiuzhen uses regularly in her work. As Ma explains, the artist views clothing as a ‘second skin’ and that what we wear carries the essence of who we are.

Though Xiuzhen is known for her soft sculpture, this exhibition demonstrates a great expansiveness to her practice. A Heart to Heart, with its steel frame, explores the tensions between very hard and very soft materials, while Ruined City (1996), which is being shown here for only the second ever time, is an installation of cement powder, furniture and roof tiles.