The Raft - Leo Gallery Hongkong

Dylan Doe’s The Raft takes the raft as both metaphor and structural condition: not simply a life-saving device adrift at sea, but a temporary support that underpins, stabilises, and shapes form in the process of becoming. Across this body of work, human figures and plant forms intertwine in states of co-growth and mutual dependency.

Fragmented figures and mutating plant forms emerge within carefully constructed environments. Limbs are braced, stems are supported, bodies partially fuse with external frameworks. The title The Raft carries a quiet tension, suggesting both survival and suspension — a structure that keeps one afloat when solid ground is absent. It also refers to the support bases used in 3D printing, where fragile forms rely on temporary scaffolding during fabrication. In these works, however, the supports do not disappear once their function is fulfilled. Instead, they remain and merge with the figures they sustain, becoming part of their anatomy.

The works draw upon Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley’s proposition in Are We Human? that humans have always been extended and reshaped by their environments and technologies. While we believe we use objects as tools, we are simultaneously reconfigured by them. This reciprocal condition also echoes Byung-Chul Han’s Non-Things, which reflects on how the comfort objects of childhood have evolved into the portable screens of adulthood. These devices become contemporary “rafts” — structures that steady anxiety while subtly shaping posture, attention, and perception. Through habitual reliance, the boundary between the individual and the structures that support them gradually dissolves.

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Exhibition: Dylan Doe, The Raft
Dates: 5 May – 26 June 2026
Private View: Tuesday 5th May 2026, 6–8pm
Location: Leo Gallery | G/F, 46 Sai St, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong