JIAHAO PENG: Hollywood Aquarium Store

Make Room is pleased to present Hollywood Aquarium Store, an immersive site-specific installation by JiaHao Peng in the gallery’s special project space [ROOM] opening on Saturday, November 2, 6-8PM. Known for living sculptural works that address the interrelatedness of the natural environment and for hosting community-building horticultural workshops as TenTen Photosynthesis, Hollywood Aquarium Store bears the fruit of a deeper botanical intervention through its playful conversion of the gallery’s street-facing window into a fish tank. Drawing inspiration from the observation that many aquarium stores in the U.S. are owned by first-generation Asian immigrants, the installation positions the materiality of the aquarium as a locus of cross-cultural exchange, care, and belonging.

Inside Hollywood Aquarium Store, the depths of undersea life are brought into view, inviting viewers to allow curiosity to draw them across boundaries. Rocks and vegetation shape this hallucinatory ecosystem, hinting at hidden forces that sustain and form underwater biomes. Evoking both the richness of natural habitats and the stillness of confined spaces, this aquatic environment traces the systems that foster life flourishing within real and constructed boundaries.

Hollywood Aquarium Store bridges the artistic and the ecological into a space that is at once familiar and otherworldly, encouraging a deeper reflection of how we shape–and are in turn shaped by–the physical, cultural, and collective worlds we inhabit. “This installation isn’t just about fish or aquariums—it’s about creating a space for thought and observation,” the artist explains. “I want viewers to walk into the gallery and think about the same questions I have—questions about culture, migration, and the importance of living things in enclosed spaces.”