From Friday 18 September 2026 to Sunday 14 February 2027, FACT presents two major solo exhibitions by Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊 and Seema Mattu.
Through installation, sculpture, film and sound, the artists invite audiences into richly crafted worlds that rethink ideas of kinship and connection. Rae-Yen Song’s •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• places the living ecosystem of a family pond in control of an environment shaped by ancestral mythologies, Daoist logics and more-than-human politics, while Seema Mattu’s LOCAL SUPERSTAR II follows the formation of Saheli, a South Asian sonic entity exploring music as a space for collaboration and care.
For Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊, the immigrant experience of flux and resilience gives rise to an ongoing exercise in speculative worlding. Across an expansive practice, Song tunes in to the frequencies of personal ancestral mythologies, Daoist logics, and entangled ecologies, all of which resonate within the large-scale installation •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~•. Co-commissioned by FACT (Liverpool) and Tramway (Glasgow), the exhibition transports audiences to a darkened abyss suspended somewhere between the deep sea and the skies above.
Building on work shown at FACT in 2022, the exhibition continues Song’s long-term exploration of inherited memories, more-than-human politics, and science fiction. Song considers •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• to be a living infrastructure of entangled energies, connections and transfers. At the heart of the installation, a glowing familial pond is home to an ecosystem of organic matter, invertebrates, and microscopic life. Through cameras and live video analysis, the ecosystem of the pond controls the exhibition’s ever-changing lighting state and sonic landscape, subtly imposing itself on visitors’ experience of the environment.
The pond is hosted within an immense yet delicate ‘microbeast’ serving as a sanctum that offers audiences a space to dwell and reflect. The entire installation is imagined by the artist as a manifestation of a lost ancestor, known only through familial memories and myths, who drowned at sea at the age of thirteen in 1950s Singapore. The exhibition is titled after this ancestor, tua mak 大眼, meaning “big eyes” in the Teochew Chinese dialect.
Within the gallery, audiences encounter a network of costumes, tools, and artefacts orbiting the pond and drifting throughout the space. Made from textiles, glass, ceramic, willow, hair, and cat fur, many of these artefacts have been handcrafted by the artist. Song sees their intricate making as both the creation of a tangible, personal heritage and an act of reverence for ancestors past, present, and future, both human and more-than-human. Imagined as a living environment, •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• is further energised by a free programme of events titled OFFERINGS, featuring conversations, performances, workshops, and rituals.
In new installation LOCAL SUPERSTAR II, Seema Mattu documents the journey of Saheli, a newly formed South Asian queer sonic entity comprising Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay, MANI JNX, Ushara Dilrukshan, Zahrah Hutton, and Mattu herself. Inspired by Mattu’s experience
of seva – Sanskrit for selfless service – the project considers musical congregation as a space for collaboration, complexity, and care. Co-commissioned by Eastside Projects (Birmingham) and Focal Point Gallery (Southend-on-Sea), the exhibition arrives at FACT with the addition of new film works and interactive elements.
At the centre of the exhibition is a sculptural tour bus, decorated with garlands, and imagery depicting earlier sentiments and ideas within the wider project. This speaks to Mattu’s worldbuilding platform, SEEMAWORLD, where she explores and subverts systems of caste, queer desire, and the ways technology continually reshapes identity. The film series she who is a friend traces the formation of Saheli, and introduces audiences to the broader cosmologies of Mattu’s practice, including fantastical new worlds, deities, and a ‘Sonic Council’. From audition tapes and interviews to jam sessions and live rehearsals, the films document both the excitement and the realities of navigating collaborative musical expression.
Visitors are invited to become part of the work through playable instruments and a new sonic game titled (ear)worm’s-eye view, contributing their own sounds to an ever-evolving musical landscape. LOCAL SUPERSTAR II marks the midpoint of Saheli’s journey as the band explores what it means to make music together. Along with her collaborators, both digital and human, Mattu has created an ever-growing sonic archive that continues to evolve through the people who take part. During the exhibition, Saheli will perform live at FACT, and Mattu is joined by ‘Sonic Council’ member and curator Amrita Dhallu for an in-conversation exploring artistic power and music’s worldmaking potential.