Bundanon

Kien Situ (b.1990) is an architectonic artist whose practice spans sculpture and space. Informed by his diasporic heritage at the juncture of global cultural theory with Sinospheric philosophies, he explores matter, ruin, distance, numerology, and time in relation to cultural dislocation.

Situ reconfigures structures and space through encounters formed by destabilisation, tension, and hybridity. Drawing from deconstructivist, minimalist, and brutalist methodologies, his work merges ancestral materials with modern techniques. Chinese Mò ink is central to his practice, altered through architectural materials. By displacing and reorienting these elements – while ‘reincarnating’ old works into new forms – he examines the destructive relationality between matter and identity, envisaging the cartography of his practice as an ‘endless, formless ruin.’

Situ has exhibited at Artspace, 4A, Passage, and designed numerous exhibitions at AGNSW. In 2024, he was shortlisted for Create NSW’s Artspace VAFE and Lee Ufan Arles x Maison Guerlain Prix Art & Environment.

In Residence at Bundanon

Kien will continue his research into dislocated material narratives furthering the development of an invented composite he terms ‘multi-dimensional matter.’ Fusing geological elements spanning ancient, modern, futuristic, and mystical realms, he posits new temporal, spatial, and relational dimensions as these elements converge. The resultant synthesis forms a singular entity, unifying Chinese Mò ink (2D, ancient), concrete (3D, modern), titanium (4D, futuristic), and incense ash (5D, mystical) with earth samples, embodying an accumulation of time across epochs and environments. Generated by Bundanon’s landscape, Kien will incorporate fieldwork – geological and sonic sampling – to inform paintings, sculptures, spatial models, and soundscapes.