The Semiotic Situation

In summer of 2021, a project began with Rae- Yen Song’s visit to the Print Studio, our first collaboration in some time since the pandemic1 began. Though social restrictions on how the spaces of the Print Studio were used continued, prioritising individual working and distance where possible, Song visited the Studio to begin conversations around print possibilities alongside a planned solo exhibition titled i in DCA’s galleries. These conversations began together with Annis Fitzhugh, Head of Print Studio at DCA, whose open- ended approach to collaborative experimentation in print as a method of invention is at the core of this research.2 Song introduced key concepts of narrative agency over the familial oral histories, memories and mythologies behind the exhibition, a sculptural environment based on what Song described as an ‘imagined dialogue with a long- departed grandfather...a being from another time and place, and my conversation with him addresses crossing, migration, loss, survival and labour’.