Alison Chen- THE TENDERNESS OF TIDES
November 7, 2025 – December 20, 2025
Filter Space, 1821 W. Hubbard St. Suite 207, Chicago, IL 60622
from site: In The Tenderness of Tides, curated by María Sprowls-Cervantes, Alison Chen explores water and its relationship to the moon’s gravitational pull – the magic of invisible forces that dictate the rhythm of the ocean. Such a relationship is perceived and manifested by Chen as both cosmic and intimate, a dance that has existed long before us, and will continue long afterwards. This body of work began as an organic documentation of Chen's daily experiences in motherhood and greatly expanded when she found a photograph of her maternal grandmother as a new mother holding her newborn daughter. The photograph was rediscovered upon her grandmother’s death at the end of 2019. On that same trip, she heard her mother’s last words to her own mother, who lay cold on the mortician’s table. Knowing the tenuousness of their relationship and gazing upon this celebratory image taken during her traditional Chinese one-month celebration — the artist wondered: “How do we learn what mothering should look like? How does our own generational and cultural trauma factor into our ideas of what it means to care for our children?”