Viewing Lap-See Lam, Floating Sea Palace at Studio Voltaire

Artist Lap-See Lam’s new show refers to the ‘Sea Palace’, a three-floor floating Chinese restaurant, in the shape of a dragon, originally built in the 1990s to sail from Shanghai to Europe. It belonged to a Swedish businessman, Johan Wang, and eventually docked in Gothenburg, where it was later turned into a haunted funhouse.

Lap-See Lam has explored the Sea Palace in previous works at her first solo exhibition in the US last year and at the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024. For her first institutional exhibition in the UK, Lam has produced a new series of works that riff on the mistranslation of cultural heritage, taking the Sea Palace as a starting point, tracing the intergenerational experience in its kitsch interiors, that replicate the decor of so many Chinese restaurants found across Europe, including the restaurant that belonged to the artist’s grandparents, who emigrated to Sweden from Hong Kong in the 1970s.

A new film is at the centre of Lam’s exhibition – Lap-See Lam, Floating Sea Palace – at Studio Voltaire, unfolding from the hybrid, layered interiors of the Sea Palace, drawing inspiration from Cantonese opera, and led by a mythological fish-hybrid character. Also referencing the elaborate bamboo scaffolding used for Cantonese Opera performances, Lam has created a large-scale installation with bamboo in the gallery space – creating an environment in which the film is staged and embedded. A thrilling and imaginative exploration of diasporic lives.