Eidolon is a site-specific installation by London-based artist duo Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier which takes the form of a simple yet rigorous line that bisects the courtyard interior along a diagonal plane. Their intervention is an elegant gesture that resonates across multiple registers: architectural, historical, critical, and poetic.
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When: Now – 1 March 2026 - Suitable For: All
- Where: City Hall Courtyard
A monumental yet ethereal intervention within the City Hall Courtyard
Within the City Hall Courtyard, Phaophanit and Oboussier conceive an image that evokes a simultaneous interplay between the abstract and the concrete. Set against the skylight, Eidolon is composed of two parallel rows of beaded link-chains connecting opposite corners across the space. The metallic chains belie their industrial character and instead form a delicate asymmetrical screen that divides the interior space. With a nickel gunpowder finish, the chains reflect ambient light and mirror the architectural features around them, creating a constantly shifting surface. The artists draw on the cultural ubiquity of beads, which have been worn for adornment, used in prayer, or exchanged in trade. In Eidolon, these beads suggest forms of connection and meaning intended beyond language or specific cultures.
Its title, from the Greek word for “phantom,” gestures to the intangible, while its root eidos, “that which is seen”, suggests presence. The work can be seen as a kind of veil or mirage, something that sits between what is suggested and what is seen. As the vertical lines overlap visually, they produce a moiré effect—a kind of optical interference—resulting in a dynamic visual effect that keeps shifting between transparency and opacity, lightness and density. The work resists easy definition, neither a hanging mobile nor a suspended sculpture. Its monumental scale elicits the viewer to look closely only to see through its physical presence. Through the work, the symmetries of the building’s neoclassical lines are still visible, but gently diffused. As a counterpoise to the cultivated histories of the space—a museum, a municipal building, a private residence—Eidolon brings attention to what is visible, but also what lies beneath, inviting the viewer to experience the space anew.
Eidolon is part of the 2025 OUTBOUND series. Inaugurated in 2018, OUTBOUND is an initiative that reimagines transitional spaces and key entrances at the Gallery through a series of unique artwork commissions, developed in collaboration with leading artists from around the world, to provoke critical reflection, curiosity, and playfulness.
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Did You Know?
Although Eidolon is made from delicate, lightweight beaded link-chains, the entire artwork is composed of 1136 individual strands of link-chains, weighs an impressive 514 kilograms and stretches a precise 28,528 millimetres.
Eidolon | Artist Sharing and Panel on Memory and Spaces
In this video, the artist duo Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier shared about their art practice and interest, followed by a response by Jakarta-based architect/urbanist Marco Kusumawijaya and a discussion moderated by curator Goh Sze Ying.
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