This winter, Finland-based artist Tianjun Li illuminates Fruitmarket’s Warehouse with their multimedia installation i am

Finland-based multidisciplinary artist Tianjun Li has been selected for Fruitmarket’s Valo/Light commission, delivered in partnership with the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland. Li will present i am, a project drawing on their fascination with lighthouses as part of coastal infrastructure throughout the world. They will combine footage they’ve made in island landscapes across Finland, Greenland, Iceland, the Netherlands, their native China and elsewhere, with new Scottish material, including film from Shetland and the Borders.

Created for Fruitmarket’s Warehouse, the multiscreen installation synchronises flickering light and voice through a shared pulse. It follows a distant Li across landscapes during the ‘blue hour’—the twilight hour after sunset. Li repeatedly signals the phrase ‘i am’ in Morse code, becoming a human lighthouse using a flashing searchlight and ethereal vocalisations that echo fog signals. Across the installation, these signals travel from one landscape to another, suggesting a fragile exchange of calls and responses. By returning communication to elemental, pre-linguistic form, Li invokes the cultural and geopolitical distances that shape how we address and understand one another.

Ahead of the exhibition opening on 10 December, Li will lead an off-site participatory event during the blue hour at Edinburgh’s own Lighthouse Park in Newhaven, followed by an experimental vocal performance at Fruitmarket Warehouse, where they will activate the installation as part of the opening programme. More details announced soon.

@timjunelee
@finist_uk_ireland
@fruitmarketgallery