Check Valve is a site-specific exhibition design exploring flow, automation, and control through spatial interventions across Sanatorium’s three floors, including infrastructure, metal, and kinetic elements.
Spatial Layout and Object Distribution
The overall circulation and viewing axis of the exhibition were structured to gradually escalate the complexity of the works: beginning with infrastructural rupture (Early Celebration), passing through mechanical abstraction (Modulators), and concluding with lyrical compression (Treatment). I collaborated with the artist to determine how each floor's spatial tone could reflect a different degree of regulation—physical, symbolic, and sonic.
Ground Floor Installation – "Early Celebration”
I designed and coordinated the installation layout of the ground floor, including the placement and spatial logic around the pink cement fountain titled Early Celebration. This work is positioned in an unfinished architectural setting, with exposed pipes and a dry basin that contrasts with expectations of decorative display and spectacle. I designed the integration of confetti remains, jerrycans, and disconnected tubing to reinforce the theme of blocked flow and suspended activation. The technical drawing mounted on the wall, and the adjacent video loop of working fountains, were composed to create a friction between functioning systems and conceptual propositions.
Upper Floor Scaffold System and Basement Scroll Installation The upper floor featured a scaffold framework I designed to display 48 plotter-drawn illustrations titled Modulators. Each A3 drawing depicts mechanical regulators—valves, switches—treated as poetic metaphors for control and emotion. The scaffold itself referenced construction aesthetics while offering a modular display system. Custom aluminum attachments were used to mount the drawings, and I oversaw their fabrication and alignment.
In the basement, I developed the mechanism and housing for an automated lyric scroll that looped through AI-generated songs from the Treatment album. The scroll used translucent paper on a motorized roller, designed to match the rhythm and tone of the sound piece. This installation connected conceptually to the upper floor through its emphasis on cycles, systems, and poetic automation.
