On April 26, CHERUBY presents an artist talk by Shanliang. Entering from the cultural phenomena of ita the artist, is joined by researcher Jenny Jiaying Chen, and CHERUBY director Joni Zhu to discuss how the Japanese word ita (pain) emerged as a central thread in her practice.

Shanliang’s practice examines sadomasochistic entanglements between ita culture, technology, and the body through the investigation of individual desire and the dehumanized body. Building on her long-term research in new materiality of the body and gender studies, Jenny Jiaying Chen will respond to the cultural phenomena of Nijigen. Together with Joni Zhu, the panel brings together perspectives from furry fandom, BDSM, and beyond to reconsider how “pain” shifts from shame to expression and continues to produce meaning in contemporary contexts. An on-site installation, the ita wall curated by Shanliang, further draws audiences into an intimate space of excessive attachment.

The panel discusses how is ita closely linked to contemporary mechanisms of cuteness in a broader cultural framework. Ita culture originates from the Japanese word itai (痛い), meaning painful, visual harshness, or cringeworthy. Initially used self-deprecatingly, it describes visual practices that may feel “uncomfortable” due to excessive expressions of affection, such as itasha (decorated cars) and itabag (heavily adorned bags). Through the personal accumulation of badges, charms, and stickers, ita culture radically materializes private emotion and displays it across bodies and fashion objects. This produces an affective language system defined by excess—where shame and obsession are no longer hidden, but amplified and reiterated until they become interfaces for visibility, exchange, and shared affect. While ita pushes emotion to its limits through exposure and excess, cuteness lowers the barrier for entry through softness, flatness, and approachability, enabling such affects to circulate and be absorbed.

As a cultural organisation at the intersection of art and fashion, CHERUBY maintains a sustained interest in practices that tightly interweave the body, desire, and material production. We center visual languages that remain at the margins of dominant narratives yet are highly subversive and proactive, and on how they generate new modes of expression within systems of algorithms, consumption, and affect.

Video documentation available at: