The Poverty Line - France 2015 - Chocolate Biscuits, Giclee print on archival paper (Hahnemuhle Matt FineArt Photo Rag), 58 cm × 38.7 cm, Edition 1 of 5 + 2 AP.

This year, Whitestone Gallery is proud to make its debut at Asia NOW – Paris Asian Art Fair 2026, presenting a solo showcase by Singaporean artist duo Chow and Lin from 20th - 24th October at Monnaie de Paris, France. The fair also marks a significant debut for Chow and Lin at Asia NOW. For this occasion, Chow and Lin will bring together two notable bodies of work that examine how abstract systems of value are constructed, measured, and experienced in everyday life.

Chow and Lin use a distinctive methodology combining statistical, mathematical, and research techniques to explore and address pressing global issues. Their projects are driven by discursive backgrounds in economics, policy, and media, and these are augmented by enduring exchanges with specialists across disciplines.

At the centre of the presentation is their seminal project The Poverty Line (2010–2026), an ongoing research project that uses food as a universal language to translate the abstract concept of poverty into something visible and tangible. For this showcase, the artists present nine works from the series, in which food choices become calibrated measures of the economic conditions of different places and communities. By transforming statistical data into familiar food objects, the project translates abstract economic disparities into forms that can be readily seen and understood.

Alongside The Poverty Line, the presentation introduces Decentralized Value Systems (2020-2026), with an expanded material and conceptual direction within the artists’ evolving practice. Working with ceramics and found domestic objects, Chow and Lin examine how value is constructed within contemporary economic systems, where price increasingly shapes what we consider desirable and worth pursuing.

Through the juxtaposition of The Poverty Line and Decentralized Value Systems, this solo showcase traces Chow and Lin’s continuing inquiry into the systems that shape contemporary life—demonstrating how everyday objects can become instruments of measurement, and material things can become questions about value itself.

More details of the artist duo and projects can be found in the next section.

Chow and Lin have also engaged closely with international policy, research, and innovation platforms to further interdisciplinary discourse. They have exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Arles Les Rencontres De La Photographie, Art Basel Hong Kong, Lahore Biennale, National University of Singapore Museum, and the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok. Their works are in the permanent collections of MoMA, China Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, and Art Vontobel. They are recipients of the Berlin Falling Walls Breakthrough Awards-Science in the Arts (2020), IMPART Art Prize (2022), Global TED Fellows (2024).

Chow and Lin
Stefen Chow (b. 1980) & Huiyi Lin (b. 1980)

Chow and Lin are an artist duo consisting of Stefen Chow and Huiyi Lin. Their practice questions the state of being in a world defined by transition. They explore how identity, values, and memory are embedded in everyday objects and systems, emphasizing the physicality of time. With a collaboration that started from life and traversed into art, they seek human scale and agency in the vastness of global societal narratives.

Chow and Lin have exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Art Basel Hong Kong, Lahore Biennale, Arles Les Rencontres De La Photographie, National University of Singapore Museum. Their works are in the permanent collections of MoMA, China Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Art Vontobel. They are authors of The Poverty Line (published by Actes Sud and Lars Müller Publishers), which is in the collections of the Centre Pompidou Bibliothèque publique d'information, V&A Museum and National Gallery Singapore. They have been awarded by LUMA Rencontres, Berlin Falling Walls, Art Outreach, and TED.

They also engage closely with international policy, research, and innovation platforms to further interdisciplinary discourse. They have spoken at the World Economic Forum and the United Nations. They have delivered lectures at The London School of Economics, Sciences Po, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Parsons School of Design.

Chow and Lin work across Beijing and Singapore. They are represented by Whitestone Gallery Singapore.

Series: The Poverty Line (2010-2026)

The Poverty Line uses the universal lens of food to examine the daily choices we would face living at the poverty line. Since 2010, the artists have traveled over 350,000 kilometers to create case studies of 40 countries and territories spanning six continents. Initially a research project into societal concerns, the project became a journey that connected with personal family histories and lived experiences.

A consistent methodology was created and used across geography and time. Each country’s figure uses the official poverty definition to derive a per-person, per-day rate. For middle- and high-income economies, the average low-income household food expenditure is taken into account, while for low-income economies, the entire daily income of a poor individual is used. According to the granted sum of money, food is bought in local marketplaces. Every food group is included: vegetables, fruits, carbohydrates, protein, and snacks. At the core of the work is the idea of choice, albeit within a limited budget. Each product is photographed on a local newspaper from the day of the shoot.

Newspapers form the monotonous backdrops crowded with headlines calling for attention. This reflects our incessant obsession with information, but in a format whose relevance is called into question with the rise of digital and social media. This seismic shift in information dissemination has impacted its accessibility in a connected and distracted civilization.

The Poverty Line is a growing conversation that questions our understanding of poverty and inequality. Traversing cultures and economic systems, it confronts the viewer with objective, non-emotional observations of our own circumstance, framed against the fragile balance of social structures, growth, and divide in an entangled, globalized world.

The Poverty Line – Green – Vietnam, Mauritius, France, Cambodia (2011-2015), Giclee print on archival paper (Hahnemuhle Matt FineArt Photo Rag), Set of 4 works; each measures 58 cm × 38.7 cm, Edition 1 of 5 + 2 AP.

Series: Decentralized Value Systems (2026)

Decentralized Value Systems questions our perception of value in an economic construct where prices are an omnipresent determinant of demand and desirability.

In a world increasingly edging into virtuality, the purpose of money is redefined and desensitized. The essence of being countable, transferable, and able to store value need not be fulfilled only by material objects, but also by paper and metal. Worth has been transformed into derivatives stretching across time, distance, and electrical pulses. Digitalization of currency offers to resolve physical operating limits.

In the assemblages, a food item becomes a measure of worth, embedded into another ready-made object found in the vicinity of its existence. For this exhibition, the selected items — eggs, canned soup, coffee capsules and ubiquitous furnishings — are recognisable icons to many urban households. The fabricated representation of food items using ceramics invokes attention to time, labour and process in value formation. An exploration of participatory actors enmeshed in interlinked systems of production, trade and consumerism.

Left: Decentralized Value Systems 2026 0019, Ready-made Dish Drainer and Ceramic Eggs, 46 cm × 18 cm × 36 cm, Edition 1 of 3 + 1 AP
Right: Decentralized Value Systems 2026 0015, Ready-made Lamp and Ceramic Cans, 30 cm × 25 cm × 82 cm, Edition 1 of 3 + 1 AP

Join us at Asia NOW – Paris Asian Art Fair 2026 for an unforgettable experience of contemporary art from Singapore.