movana chen

Flowers Gallery is delighted to present Love Letters, a new body of work by Movana Chen. Representative of her practice, Chen has meticulously archived the written communications from her loved ones spanning over three decades. Delving into a deeply personal aspect of communication, Chen aims to reflect the female labour, personal and shared memories by way of materials transformation and decontextualization.

Love Letters is a collection of over 180 hand-written letters sent to the artist between 1989 - 2023 from friends, family and loved ones. The letters are shredded, deconstructed and knitted into visceral sculptural forms, locking old memories away in a suspended moment while threading them into a renewed manifestation of love.

Chen explains:"These works are the reminder of an older time, when life had a slower pace, allowing more intimacy to be appreciated through the rich expressions contained in each letter and the joy of waiting."

Love letters #5 was created from a series of letters dated in 1991 when Chen moved from Shenzhen, China to Hong Kong with her family. Re-visiting these old letters is a gesture of connecting with past memories. Assembled from the fragments of paper, the process of reconstructing is a journey of healing and meditation for Chen.

love letters #1 to 15 (1991 to 2023), 2023
knitted shredded love letters, 13 x 21cm each