Private View: 05.08 14:00-20:00｜05.09 12:00-20:00

Public Days: 05.10 11:00-20:00｜05.11 11:00-18:00

Vanguard Gallery is pleased to present “The Last Watcher” by Xia Han at Photofairs Shanghai 2025 from 8th to 11th May at Booth S17.

A single island remains, surrounded in mystery and patrolled by 40 metre tall mech warriors. Iridescent sands rise out of the ocean, rhythmically cycling through gradients like candy coloured sugar. The natives live in the post-industrial ruins of extraction industries and the remains of fairgrounds, daily they convene at the centre of the island to worship the remaining Nyan Cat, a remnant of the old world’s fascination with all things feline, possibly the last artefact of the now deleted internet. Beyond the rollercoasters and smoke refinery smokestacks, over the dunes, roam feral swamp things, mutants who cling to their pre-collapse anti-pollution cycling masks. Every surface of this world is coated in the vibrant byproducts of 21st century industry, contaminated in tones of pink and yellow, infused with toxic greens and spray-tan oranges. Our protagonist must navigate this world alone, accompanied by the pot plant he guards in his clear plastic backpack and the plunger he uses to ward off antagonists. The world doesn’t end with a whimper, it ends with a highly-saturated fever dream.

——Pita Arreola-Burns