It’s Raining Outside, It’s Raining Inside

24 Oct – 22 Nov, 2026

Solo exhibition at VILLA tbh, 15 Taojiang Road, Shanghai

VILLA tbh presents it’s raining outside, it’s raining inside, the concluding exhibition of Duyi Han’s artist residency with tbh. Following several weeks of living and working on the house’s third floor, Duyi Han has assembled a garden of textiles, embroidery, sound, and sculptural forms, with an atmosphere borrowed in part from the listening room. The light and sound of rainy days, songs encountered by chance, fragments of cinema, and imagined forms have found their way into a collection of objects, each with a character of its own.

During the residency, Duyi Han became attentive to the particular atmosphere of the house and its surroundings. The cultural history of this Shanghai neighborhood, the relationship between gardens and everyday life, and the architectural character of the house gradually found their way into his work. As new pieces appeared throughout the rooms, the house acquired a faintly peculiar life. Some seem perfectly at home, while others appear unexpected, extravagantly overgrown, or a little difficult to explain.

At the center of the room, a carpet patterned with ripples holds an assortment of textile sculptures. Slender tubular structures intersect, pleats unfold and droop, and translucent shells partially reveal the forms within. A pair of translucent shoes and socks embroidered with lyrics seems poised to take a step. A suspended light hovers overhead. Beyond the carpet, a transparent garment is surrounded by circulating air and tiny fragments inside a wooden vitrine. Water droplets appear suspended in the kitchen sink, pink fabric glows softly against the dark gray stone of the bathroom, and framed works in front of the walls bring text into the shifting colors of marble veining. As visitors' eyes wander, foreground and background continually shift into new configurations.

*Nothing is Forgiven* (ref. Blood Orange, “Minetta Creek”)

*Ese Viento Fatal Me Ha Transformado en Otro Chaval* (*That Fatal Wind Has Turned Me into Another Kid*) (ref. Guitarricadelafuente, “Tramuntana”)

The sounds, light, and subtle sensory shifts of rainy weather have been important to the making of this exhibition. The weightlessness and transparency of organza echo the damp, hazy atmosphere of a rainy day and its occasional moments of sudden brightness. There is also an element of intuition in Han’s process, something like arranging a small cluster of plants and gradually deciding how each stem should lean. Certain forms are carefully considered, while others emerge through discoveries made in the course of working with the material.

*Practically Drowning in My Blessings* (ref. Ariana Grande, “Petal”)

*I’m So Tired of Being Strong* (ref. Fred Again, “Me (heavy)”)

Often we do not know what we are feeling and unexpectedly find it in a song, a breeze, a cloud. It is through a particular chord, aroma, or atmospheric condition that passions are stirred and we suddenly recognize our own emotions. Han imagines the exhibition as a Listening Garden, drawing on the atmosphere of a listening room. Music plays continuously throughout the house, while lyrics from different musicians and films enter the works as titles, embroidery, or, occasionally, a cry that has almost lost its meaning. Intimacy, exhaustion, defiance, longing, and uncertainty arrive in these borrowed voices, lending the strange forms a sense of stories unfolding around them. Visitors drift through the rooms to the music, pausing before objects and the words scattered among them. These fleeting scenes can resemble moments from a music video, where an image gathers associations through the presence of sound.

*Some Feeling from Drive My Car (Kafuku)* (ref. Eiko Ishibashi)

*Fountain at the Kiki* (ref. Scissor Sisters, “Let’s Have a Kiki”)

*I’ll Run A Shower For You like You Want* (ref. Billie Eilish, “Lunch”)

*The Outside World Still Feels Far Away (外面还是离我很远)*

Poetry, calligraphy, objects, and domestic traditions from China’s Song and Ming dynasties, alongside the spatial sensibility of twentieth-century Milanese residences, provide historical points of reference. The place of writing within objects and everyday life in historical China, and the careful attention to proportion, material, and empty space in Milanese interiors, inform Han’s decisions throughout the exhibition. Traces of these histories can be found in the placement of text, the contours of objects, and the arrangement of the rooms, where they mingle with contemporary pop music, synthetic textiles, and slightly eccentric forms.

*Weeds in the Back Garden (野草在后花园)*
Hand-embroidery on silk

It’s Raining Outside, It’s Raining Inside brings a curious kind of vitality to the house. Things appear to be growing, still finding their shape, carrying the dampness and haze of rainy weather and a light, elusive emotional charge. The garden becomes a place for chance, imagination, and passing feelings, introducing a little unpredictability into the familiar rhythms of domestic life.

*Maybe It’s Just Admiration* (ref. Troye Sivan feat. Guitarricadelafuente, “In My Room”)
UV print and hand-embroidery on satin

*How Was I to Know* (ref. Tame Impala, “Borderline”)

*Fifteen Seconds of Ravel’s String Quartet M. 35, II*

*He Believes in Beauty (and Gentle)* (ref. Björk, “Venus as a Boy”)

This exhibition is supported by tbh. To inquire available works contact BANK Gallery.