A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN

EXHIBITION | 19 SEPTEMBER – 19 OCTOBER 2026

ICICLE Cultural Space Shanghai presents A Room of One’s Own, a solo exhibition by French photographer Ilion Huit, bringing together twenty-five recent analogue photographs. Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s landmark 1929 essay, the exhibition explores the necessity of a space of one’s own: not only as a physical place, but as an inner territory where thought, imagination and freedom can emerge.

Windows, doors and shafts of light recur throughout the works, opening enclosed interiors towards distant landscapes. As the exhibition unfolds, intimate rooms gradually give way to the sky, the sea and expansive horizons, tracing a movement from withdrawal to openness.

Working exclusively with analogue photography and a Leica M6, Ilion Huit photographs what is fragile and almost imperceptible: a fleeting reflection, a play of shadow and light, a passing presence. Rather than documenting the world, his images reveal what lies beyond the visible — sensations, memories and quiet states of being. Literature, particularly the writings of Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust and Jack London, permeates this contemplative body of work.

“For Ilion Huit, the room is both a physical and a mental space, a place from which to escape, turn inward and open oneself to the world. Far from being a gesture of withdrawal, this return to the self allows for a renewed relationship with reality. Between intimacy and expansion, his contemplative, pared-back photographs trace a path towards emancipation: claiming a space of one’s own and discovering that this inner space can become the point of departure for every journey.” Myriam Kryger, Exhibition Curator.