The Compound is proud to announce its inaugural exhibition: Chew-Ache, a visceral inquiry into the act of chewing as both instinct and insubordination. Marking the official launch of the Multidisciplinary Arts Program, Chew-Ache sets the tone for an exhibition space that is dedicated to instability, fluidity and resistance.

Curated in the spirit of friction and noise, Chew-Ache explores the act of chewing beyond its physiological function—framing it as resistance, disruption, and a site of tension within systems of consumption, production, and control. The show brings together a group of artists whose practice is a rethinking of the power dynamics behind the everyday verb ‘chewing’, liberating the word from silent submission and reclaiming the agency of ‘Chewing’. The artists in this exhibition amplify the gnaw, the crack, the splinter—unveiling chewing as a disobedient act that rattles not only the jaw, but also the social, political, and sensory systems that seek to digest us whole.

Featuring works by Simon Garb, Ben Gould, Alex Mari, Jiangshengyu Nova Pan, Olivia Reavey, and Yasser Vayani, the exhibition sprawls across painting, performance, sculpture, sound, and photography. In this exhibition, chewing is reimagined as noise, as rupture, as a site of bodily uprising. As the artists tear at the fabric of passive ingestion—whether it be food, language, history, or ideology—they leave behind a collective howl, a low-frequency vibration of resistance.

Chew-Ache is a call to all bodies: reclaim the jaw, rupture the script, grind against the grain.