Difficult Knowledge
The Shanghai Museum of Glass- Solo Exhibition
Difficult Knowledge
A solo exhibition by Australian Contemporary Artist Kate Baker
The Shanghai Museum of Glass
November 2024 - April 2025
This project is proudly supported by the following funding partners:
Across the 800 m² H18 Contemporary Art Wing of the Shanghai Museum of Glass—an adapted former glass factory—Kate Baker’s Difficult Knowledge unfolds as a monumental, immersive environment of glass, moving image, and sound that seems to breathe with the building’s industrial past.
Projected moving-image narratives emerge from a labyrinth of glass forms, transforming the cavernous space into an immersive environment where light, space, and sound challenge the viewer’s sensory perception.
Visitors are invited to wander, retrace their steps, and discover shifting vantage points that alter their sense of distance—both physical and emotional.
Watch the documentary film below to learn more about the making of the exhibition and the ideas behind the creation of each large-scale installation:
Difficult Knowledge explores thresholds of human experience that reside in the shadowlands of our subconscious and are hidden within collective ideas that often resist articulation through everyday language. Baker’s immersive installations invite audiences to inhabit these ambiguities, offering a contemplative yet sensorially rich encounter with the paradox between human responsibility and vulnerability, framed through the evolving language of contemporary glass and moving-image practice.
Learn more about each of the three major installations via the links below:
Homage to Bausch
3-channel, 15-minute durational video, sound, and glass installation, 150m2
Little Fish
Single-channel, 15-minute durational video, sound, and glass installation, 216m2
