Lithium Sex Demons in the Factory
September 22–December 16, 2023Canal Projects is pleased to present the first New York solo institutional exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist Candice Lin, Lithium Sex Demons in the Factory (September 22–December 16, 2023). Co-commissioned by Canal Projects and the 14th Gwangju Biennale, the site-specific project replicates a lithium battery factory, continuing the artist’s ongoing research on globalization and trade networks, materiality, and labor.
Emulating a precarious site of manufacture, Lithium Sex Demons in the Factory features a large platform at the center of the gallery at Canal Projects, creating a vantage point from where visitors take on the surveillance gaze of a factory manager. Touching on a complex web of issues that relate to the histories of mass production, the installation focuses on the extraction and production of lithium––a mineral that powers global mass consumption and is also used in ceramic production.
On the ground, ceramic fermentation vessels are connected by tubing to six manufacturing workstations that are mounted with ceramic computers and time clocks, whirring machines, and flickering motion-activated lights. At each workstation, sound, video animation, and text narrate the fictional lives of the lithium sex demons. Their story is based on a short essay written by Lin, describing a sex demon’s quest to return from the dead to their lover in a lithium battery factory. Set among the fumes of soldering smoke, the videos depict the banality of an assembly line possessed with dreams and passions that refuse to die.
The story of the sex demon is a fiction that draws from various Asian myths and ghost lore, such as the Chinese hungry ghosts (èguǐ), Japanese shit-eating ghosts (gaki), and Malay penanggal that feast on menstrual blood. The demonic possession of factory workers has a basis in reality, as documented by the scholar Aihwa Ong. In Lin’s work, however, these testimonies of toxicity become entwined with a story of bodily desire in the spiritual world, creating multiple layers around labor politics, queer love, and the materiality of our contemporary world.
Candice Lin is known for multimedia installations that incorporate transitive materials and transformative substances that signal the porous nature of boundaries. Her work engages notions of gender, race, and sexuality, drawing from decolonial theory, anthropology, natural history, and feminist and queer theory.
Canal Projects would like to give special thanks to Sook-Kyung Lee, Artistic Director of the 14th Gwangju Biennale and Sooyoung Leam, curatorial assistant. We also thank Candice Lin and Valeria Tizol-Vivas, and are grateful for the support of François Ghebaly Gallery, Canal Projects Board of Managers and Advisory Board, and the YS Kim Foundation.
3D Modeling and animation: Yotam
Menda-Levy
Ceramic onggi production: Hyangjong Oh
Textile assistance and manager’s platform architectural model: Valeria Tizol-Vivas
Other assistance: Sue-Yeon Cho.
Special thanks to the installation team at Canal Projects.
The artist would also like to extend her gratitude to ann haeyoung, from whom she first learned about demonic possession of electronics factory
workers, and to Miljohn Ruperto and Aihwa Ong for their work on the subject matter. She would also like to acknowledge master ceramist Hyangjong Oh for hosting her in Mokpo and teaching her how to make ceramic onggis.
Finally, she would like to thank the editors at Triple Canopy Rachel Ossip and Alexander Provan for their work on “My Life as a Lithium Sex Demon.”
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Candice Lin, Lithium Sex Demons in the Factory, 2023. Courtesy the artist and François Ghebaly Gallery. Commissioned by Canal Projects and the 14th Gwangju Biennale. Installation view, Canal Projects (2023). Image courtesy Canal Projects. Photo: Izzy Leung.
