I need the sea because it teaches me.

I don’t know if I learn music or awareness,

if it’s a single wave or its vast existence,

or only its harsh voice or its shining

suggestion of fishes and ships.

The fact is that until I fall asleep,

in some magnetic way I move in

the university of the waves.

It’s not simply the shells crunched

as if some shivering planet

were giving signs of its gradual death;

no, I reconstruct the day out of a fragment,

the stalactite from the sliver of salt,

and the great god out of a spoonful.

What it taught me before, I keep.

It’s air ceaseless wind, water and sand.

It seems a small thing for a young person,

to have come here to live with his own fire;

nevertheless, the pulse that rose

and fell in its abyss,

the crackling of the blue cold,

the gradual wearing away of the star,

the soft unfolding of the wave

squandering snow with its foam,

the quiet power out there, sure

as a stone shrine in the depths,

replaced my world in which were growing

stubborn sorrow, gathering oblivion,

and my life changed suddenly:

as I became part of its pure movement.

^{《 The Sea 》 Pablo Neruda}

KIKA gallery is pleased to present Foster Mickley, an artist from New York. After receiving his MFA in photojournalism and fine arts in the US, Mickley studied photography at Magnum Photos, one of the world-leading international photography collectives and has since continued to work in Asia, Europe and the US. In this project, "Wish Exchange," Mickley's diverse creative activities in photography and writing will come to fruition in a relational work that emphasizes the relationships between us. Mickley considers seashells as a "gift" from the earth and will “gift“ them to visitors. Once shelters for living creatures, seashells are a symbol of dreams as well as a metaphor for wishes. The artist who greets you at the exhibition will share something with you through the gift exchange of a shell. It may be thoughts of the distant sea, or daydreams of time floating through faraway places. In this exhibition, the participant - yes, you -, will be the artwork. The exhibition "Wish Exchange” is up to each and every visitor to imagine and shape its potential; embodying a process of uncertainty that is itself one of the thrilling aspects that we can experience through contemporary art.