Born Beneath The Dome

On 3 January 2026, Civico 23 Gallery will present ‘Born Beneath The Dome’, a solo exhibition by artist Yuqi Wang, marking the gallery’s inaugural showcase of the year. Centred on the dual-screen video work The Last Performance (2025) and complemented by the photography series The Bad Eggs of Baby City (2025), the exhibition constructs a contemporary allegory exploring systems, the mechanics of the gaze, and the awakening of the subject.

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The Last Performance is a dual-screen video that juxtaposes three distinct spatial dimensions to form a highly theatrical, yet self-contained, system of consciousness. The first sequence features miniature fairgrounds and circuses; their hyper-perfect order and mechanical repetition create a meticulously maintained illusion of pleasure—a model of happiness beneath a ‘Truman-esque dome’. The second sequence shifts to actual abandoned amusement parks, where a clown executes programmed roles through highly stylised movements: emerging from a haunted house, or forcing a smile into a mirror. The third sequence places the clown within the void of a derelict theatre, engaged in a pursuit and confrontation with a ‘clown-like double’, conducting an act of self-observation beneath unrequited spotlights.

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By replacing linear temporal narrative with spatial juxtaposition, the work presents prosperity and ruin, reality and simulation, not as successive evolutionary stages but as co-existing systemic states. In this structure, the clown is positioned as an ‘interface’—a node connecting the individual to the apparatus of the gaze. He is simultaneously scrutinised and, through the looking glass, scrutinises himself. Mask, mirror, and expectation converge into a closed perceptual circuit, revealing ‘happiness’ as a callable function rather than a spontaneous emotional experience.

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‘Born Beneath The Dome’ does not merely showcase fictional characters from Wang’s artistic universe; it serves as a metaphor for our contemporary condition. We are born beneath a dome—an invisible architecture composed of family, society, technology, culture, and memory. Beneath this unseen canopy, every individual is named, shaped, and assigned a role. The point of departure for freedom often lies in the awareness of the dome’s existence. The two bodies of work presented here revolve around this epiphany: The Last Performance depicts how a fated clown perceives his plight within a closed theatre and attempts to tear up the script of a predetermined destiny; whereas The Bad Eggs of Baby City focuses on the outliers generated within the system—those who are both the products of the dome and the cracks within it.

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This, precisely, is the ultimate identity of those ‘Born Beneath the Dome’: striving for a true birth within a programmed world.