"kawan, kawan
we have made a room
inside somebody else’s building"
- Drenched Co.
Kawan means friend in Malay and, said twice, crosses the small distance between one person and another, the first word calling out and the second returning with company.
Shoes Off begins at the threshold, with the old understanding that some part of the outside gets left there. Yet even this threshold belongs to somebody else. The exhibition occupies a vacant unit in Euston Tower, lent by British Land for a few weeks, which lends its hospitality a slight tremor: come in, though the room itself is only passing through.
The exhibition reaches for care and belonging more times than either word can hold. Something of both survives because the works keep their differences and their own weather. Someone lays a rug across the unfinished floor. Elsewhere, a tent pole leans over a few roof tiles, waiting for a house that has yet to come.
Outside, Euston Tower keeps its name. Inside, somebody says friend twice and means it.
See https://www.instagram.com/p/DbvbMjQCEGS/
and https://www.instagram.com/weareshoesoff
See also https://www.soaked.space/2026/09/exhibition-review-shoes-off-kawan-kawan.html
