Charmaine Poh | „Make a travel deep of your inside, and don't forget me to take“ | MUDEC

MUDEC – Museo delle Culture, in partnership with Deutsche Bank and in collaboration with 24 ORE Cultura – Gruppo Il Sole 24 Ore – presents ‘Make a journey deep within yourself, and don’t forget to take me with you’, the first solo exhibition in Italy by the Singaporean-Chinese artist Charmaine Poh, who in 2025 won the prestigious international ‘Artist of the Year’ award, which the bank dedicates to the exploration and promotion of contemporary art. The exhibition is curated by Britta Färber, Global Head of Art & Culture at Deutsche Bank.

Through a multidisciplinary practice that interweaves video, installation, photography, text and performance, Poh explores the intersections between personal memory, social dynamics and new digital technologies, thereby shedding light on the complexity of our present. At the heart of her work lies an exploration of identity and bodily representation, tracing how our private lives are inextricably intertwined with power structures, historical narratives and contemporary forms of public visibility – both physical and virtual.

The title of the exhibition is inspired by a phrase that emerged from a correspondence in English between the artist and a friend. A grammatically imperfect, poetic and elusive expression that becomes the key to exploring the realm of the untranslatable: that realm situated halfway between different languages, cultures and experiences.

These intersecting themes converge in an exhibition conceived as an immersive and multi-layered environment, in which the personal dimension enters into a constant dialogue with collective tensions.

At the heart of the exhibition is ‘The Moon is Wet’ (2025), a large-scale three-channel video installation commissioned specifically for this project. The work weaves together the myths of the sea goddess Mazu with the historical and contemporary experiences of migrant women working as domestic workers in Singapore, offering a powerful narrative of female solidarity and care. Alongside this, the light installation ‘Heavy is the root of light’ (2025) transports visitors into a space where light and poetry take on a tangible presence. ‘What’s softest in the world rushes and runs over what’s hardest in the world’ – previously presented at the 2024 Venice Biennale – gives a voice to the longings and vulnerabilities of non-normative families.

The exhibition also explores the delicate relationship between physical presence and digital existence. In the project “Good Morning Young Body” (2021–23), Poh revisits her past as a young television actress, using archival technologies and deepfakes to prompt reflection on media presence and the dynamics of virtual violence against the female body.

‘Make a travel deep of your inside, and don’t forget me to take’ unfolds at MUDEC as a unique visual and emotional landscape: a profound journey that begins with individual experience and expands into broader reflections on belonging, care, and contemporary forms of resistance and solidarity.

Dates: 18 September – 1 November 2026