
The Shape of What Was transforms the gallery into a domestic interior made from life size furniture and household objects built with 3D printing pens and black Polylactic Acid (PLA) filament. Based on objects from places I have lived and left behind, the exhibition explores domestic objects as memory holders and reflects on migration, belonging, and the impermanence of home. For me, the act of remaking is empowering. It allows lost or distant objects to gain a new form and presence. Although the work begins from my personal experience, it invites viewers to reflect on what they have held onto, what they have left behind, and how they define home. Xinchen Li’s practice moves between contemporary jewelry, sculpture, and installation, using material storytelling to explore memory, migration, displacement, and the impermanence of home. Working with 3D printing pens and Polylactic Acid (PLA) filament, she recreates furniture and domestic objects from places she has lived and left behind. These hand built forms function as drawings in space, holding traces of personal history, routine, attachment, and loss. Her installation work is shaped by frequent relocation and the emotional weight of objects that cannot always be carried forward. Through the act of remaking, Li gives these lost or distant objects a new presence. Her work invites viewers to reflect on their own relationships to home, memory, and belonging, transforming private experience into a shared space of recognition.