Threshold Edition #5
Hang Zhang and Jun Rui Lo
Swirling, Swirling
Swirling, Swirling, 2025 by Hang Zhang and Jun Rui Lo is now available to purchase through Threshold Editions. This limited edition sculpture has been produced alongside their exhibition Swirling, Swirling, which is open from 22 March to 20 April 2025.
This collaborative work was inspired by the whirlpool as a metaphor for love in 漩渦 (Syun4 Wo1), an early-2000s Cantonese love song that Lo and Zhang hold dear. Emphasising the whirlpool as a symbol of an intense, inescapable force, they connect it to the ecstatic, chaotic, all-consuming state of being in love.
Since the post-war period, Hong Kong’s streets have been illuminated by neon signs, making them an iconic signature of the city. However, over the past decades, these neon lights have been gradually replaced by massive LED signs, coinciding with the city's significant political and cultural transformations. To the artists, they now carry a nostalgic undertone, signifying an era of the city that is gone and deeply missed.
Through merging the form of the whirlpool with neon in this collaborative work, Lo and Zhang explore the idea of ‘fatal beauty’. This edition serves as both a tribute to euphoric yet melancholic love and a remembrance of the beloved city they now view from afar.
Swirling, Swirling is made from glass tubing containing either argon gas (blue) or neon + argon gas (pink). It comes ready to install with a transformer (100-240 volt) and cabling with a plug attachment. The edition comes with clips that fix onto the neon tube, and can be screwed into the wall so that you can easily choose your placement and install at home using standard screws.
Work Details
Title: Swirling, Swirling
Date: 2025
Price: £88 (collection only*)
Material: Glass, 100% argon gas (blue) or 15% argon gas and 85% neon gas (pink), transformer, cableing
Edition size: 5 Blue + 5 Pink + 3 A/P (artist proof not for sale)
Dimensions: 18cm (h) x 10.5cm (w) x 3.5cm (d)
The edition can be collected by appointment at Threshold in Leeds, or in Manchester or London for free. Due to the fragile nature of the glass tubing, we will not be shipping this artwork.
Julia will contact you after your purchase to arrange collection.
Threshold Editions aims to be an affordable model for buying contemporary sculpture, each purchase directly supports the artist and future exhibitions at Threshold.
50% of the sale goes directly to the artist and 50% goes to Threshold to fund future exhibitions and commissions.
*Threshold is volunteer run. Orders are processed as soon as possible, but please factor in some lead time for collection arrangements to be made.
More information about the artists:
Hang Zhang
Hang Zhang (b. Tianjin) is a Chinese artist and researcher based between London and Leeds. Her practice explores the intersections of place, beings and stigma, and focuses on social and species constructions viewed through the lens of inequality.
As a full-time immigrant/part-time migrant, a borderline woman/non-binary person, and a background straddling both working- and middle-class environments, Zhang investigates her own experiences of social alienation and that ever-familiar lost sense of belonging. Her practice often balances three critical methodologies: ethnography, field research, and fictional narrative. These methodologies artefact utopian or dystopian scapes that blend realities and imagination, encouraging audiences to re-evaluate their feelings towards the world they live in and how they fit (or don’t fit) within it.
Zhang is a practice-led PhD candidate at the University of Leeds, her project investigating the cultural images of South American camelids and how their cultural roles have evolved under colonisation and globalisation. Zhang gained a BA in Fine Art in 2021 and MA in Fine Art in 2022, from University of Leeds.
In 2023, she was awarded the British Institutional Fund by the Royal Academy of Arts. Recent solo exhibitions include: Hangover Square, (The Florence Trust, London, 2025) and Through the Party Ring (The Art House, Wakefield, 2022-2023). Recent group exhibitions include: ING Discerning Eye Exhibition, (Mall Galleries, London, 2024); Air Open, (Air Gallery, Manchester, 2024); Total Recall: Myth and Memory, (Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate, 2023); NAE Open, (New Art Exchange, Nottingham, 2023).
@hangzhang.art
www.hangzhang.hotglue
https://hangzhang.art/
Jun Rui Lo
Jun Rui Lo (b. Hong Kong) is an artist and curator based between Leeds and Manchester. Lo gained a BA in Fine Art from the University of Leeds in 2024.
Approaching art as an emotional response, Jun Rui Lo’s work explores identity politics and the aesthetics of ambiguity.
As a non-binary individual from Hong Kong living and working in the United Kingdom, the interrogation of queer and diasporic identity forms the foundation of Lo’s practice. Influenced by queer theory which advocates for gender and sexual non-conformity and freedom from normative tendencies, their work pursues the fluidity of identity and attempts to give tangibility to feelings of melancholy, alienation, and rootlessness.
Recent solo exhibitions include Ashes in Your Eyes (Haarlem Artspace, Derbyshire, 2025) and A Nostalgia Akin to Love (Village, Leeds, 2024). Recent two-person and group exhibitions include Moments That May Follow (Serf, Leeds, 2025), A Pocket Full of Plenty (Hypha Gallery Netil House, London, 2025), Tracing Connections (Manchester School of Art, Manchester, 2024), Welcome to the UK (Ugly Duck, London, 2024), and Sacred Play Secret Place (East Street Arts Patrick Studios, Leeds, 2024).
@ryanmoyii_
https://lojunrui.com/