Pavilion of Light, Song of the Sea: Exhibitions by Stella Zhong and ikkibawiKrrr at ROH Gallery

ROH presents Free-Range Suns, a solo exhibition by artist Stella Zhong, showcasing captivating contemporary sculptures. Since her debut, Zhong has captured the art world’s attention with uninhabitable environments filled with scalar, perceptual, and temporal distortions, moving unpredictably between empty spaces and cosmic debris. In her first show at ROH, Free-Range Suns features Zhong’s signature works alongside experiments in new production methods, supported by a site-specific pavilion—her largest architectural intervention to date. The exhibition runs from September 27 to November 9, 2025.

Zhong’s sculptures create self-contained worlds that playfully interact with and contradict one another, forming a unique language of objects that can only be encountered at their extremes. The presence and positioning of her works demand full attention, with objects that appear to float due to unknown forces or hide within enclosed spaces. Amid the silence, unstable existential and political conditions hum, creating a profound experience.

At the center of the exhibition is the titular main work, a structure over five meters tall with a golden glass facade that reflects direct light. Too large to be just a model yet too small to be real, this “skyscraper” depicts an ahistorical imagination inspired by urban laboratories like Jakarta and Shenzhen, where Zhong grew up. Peripheral objects and faint song-like sounds amplify the absence of human presence, inviting personal and ontological reflection.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication titled stella, designed by Kyla Arsadjaja, featuring essays and interviews from Sheau Yun Lim, CJ Salapare, and Martin Germann, which enrich Zhong’s amorphous and free-floating constellation of works.

B-side: First Collaboration with ikkibawiKrrr

On the other side, ROH Project’s b-side at the antique market on Jl. Surabaya, Jakarta, presents its inaugural collaboration with the Korean visual research collective ikkibawiKrrr through their multimedia installation Seaweed Story (2022). First shown at documenta fifteen, this installation focuses on the haenyeo, the female divers of Jeju Island, who through songs and sculptures depict their daily lives while serving as a form of consolation for the wounded island. Seaweed Story invites visitors to immerse themselves in an intimate and poetic narrative about resilience and the human connection to the environment.

ikkibawiKrrr, founded in 2021 by Gyeol Ko, Jungwon Kim, and Jieun Cho, takes its name from a combination of “ikki” (moss in Korean), “bawi” (rock), and “Krrr” (an onomatopoeia representing rolling motion). The collective is known for its innovative visual research approach, blending cultural, historical, and natural elements into profound and thought-provoking works.

About Stella Zhong

Born in 1993 in China, Stella Zhong now lives and works in New York, NY. She holds a BFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University. Her work combines expansive fields and particulate objects into forms that approach the geometric, infrastructural, lifelike, or even edible. With an approach involving physics, architecture, and playful personal imagination, Zhong creates spaces that shatter definitional boundaries, venturing into metaphysical realms full of instability and wonder.

Zhong has held solo exhibitions at renowned institutions such as Antenna Space, Shanghai; The Intermission, Piraeus; Chapter NY; Fanta-MLN, Milan; Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR; and Guan Shan Yue Art Museum, Shenzhen. Her work has also been exhibited internationally at The Powerstation, Dallas; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; SculptureCenter, Queens, NY; and many more. Reviews of Zhong’s work have appeared in FlashArt, ArtAsiaPacific, Mousse Magazine, The New York Times, and Art in America.