Nature as the Fashioner of Creatures
Nature materializes and forms. Sinologist Edward H. Schafer posited that the Tang concept of the fashioner of creatures referred to an abstract principle of nature or an immanent creative force, distinct from the Western theological Creator and the holistic design. This force or principle underscores the craft of nature. It shapes existence through material transmutation and by navigating the flux of energy. Particularly in the literary tradition of travelogues, the prevalence of such a force or principle of nature manifests often in the awe of a traveller who is no less bewildered by unfathomable natural phenomena in the south. While seeking rational explanations, the traveller could hardly resist imagining the transcendent.
When Nature Becomes a Mediated Experience
Humanist geographer Yi-Fu Tuan in his book Topophilia introduced the concept of mediated experience. He argued that modern technology (such as car windows and screens) intervened in how humans and nature interact. Hence, perceptions of nature could only be indirect. Since modernity deprived sensory experience of nature, could this nature be thought as an estranged nature mediated through technology (such as highways and glass buildings), an indirect nature, a symbol of itself?
The “Transparent” Nature
In architectural discourse, the concept of “transparency” encompasses both literal transparency (as in the optical clarity of glass allowing visual penetration to what lies beyond) and phenomenal transparency (where layered spatial elements generate complex perceptual experiences through superimposition). In modernist urban applications, both aspects are essential in aligning tectonic logic with psychological expectations. In a modern urban space, does transparency figure in a mediated nature? Do linguistic acts of classifying and naming nature embody a power structure in possession of transparency?
Spirit stones are the congealed essence of mountain spirits, their color indigo-black, their patterns like cryptic sigils, hidden in lightless mountain crevices.Red skies appear neither as dusk’s glow nor miasma, but result from crucible flames scorching the firmament.A bronze crucible is a vessel used for alchemical transmutation, a devouring maw that consumes spirits. [1]
This exhibition, featuring four artists, aims to recreate the nature found in travelogues. It is an invitation to enter rainforests or to gaze upon rocks and mountains.
The spirit stones 灵石 are the “stones” in Tang Hang’s video work, ∞ Container. Surrounded by clunking and chirping while transported to their designated categories, these stones exemplify the abstraction of natural objects and a nature made transparent together with time and space. Also by Tang Han, the video work Miss Ginkgo: Chapter 2 anthropomorphically explains the naming and migration of ginkgo, coalescing time, plants and history in the perpetual “evolution” and “misreadings”.
The term red skies 赤天 refers to the fiery color of the southern climate while hinting at the barbaric and untamed nature of Annam. The sculpture Pine Forest by artist Zhang Hua channels such untamed vitality. It also speaks to a form of labour related to pre-modernity.
A bronze crucible 铜炉 is the symbol of ancient practices of smelting and transforming nature, an avowal of the craft of the fashioner of creatures. Installation works Huhu and Abysmal Sea Mapby artist Yan Dafu depict a disciplined and extracted nature undergoing a crisis covered up with regulation and civilization. As we look at nature from behind glass, are we also looking at our disciplined selves? Last but not least, the series of paintings Rolling Poem by Xie Qun reintroduces spirits into ordinary things – an attempt to carve out a space for the supernatural and the miscellaneous in the “indirect” nature.
[1] This passage is an excerpt from Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang – a modern urban reimagining of the Tang supernatural tales, the author commissioned the text through DeepSeek in classical Chinese, utilizing three core motifs: spirit stones, red skies, and bronze crucibles.
About Artists
TANG Han, 1989 born in Guangzhou. PhD in Art Practice, University of Fine Arts of Hamburg, Hamburg, DE (2025- now); MA, Art in Context, Berlin University of Arts, Berlin, DE (2015-2019); BA, Painting, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou, CN (2008-2012). Lives and works in Berlin.
Tang Han works across the mediums of film, video, installation. Her practice delves into the micro-intricacies of everyday life and the natural world through storytelling, exploring questions about representation and meaning, and shedding light on the interplay between the seen and the spoken in diverse cultural contexts.
Her work has recently been shown at 14th Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre (2025), Para Site, HongKong (2024), Science Gallery London (2024), Taikang Art Museum, Beijing (2024), 22nd Biennial Sesc_ Videobrasil, Sesc 24 de Maio, São Paulo (2023), West Den Haag, the Hague (2023), Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Seoul (2023), Hong- gah Museum, Taipei (2023), Kunstverein in Hamburg (2023), Kunsthalle Osnabrück (2023), KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2022), OCAT Shenzhen (2020). She has screened work at film festivals and institutions including the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin (2023), New National Gallery, Berlin (2023), Beijing International Short Film Festival (2023), International Festival of Films on Art, Montreal (2022), Taiwan International Documentary Festival (2022), DOK Leipzig (2021, 2022), Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival (2021, 2022). She was awarded the Award for Excellence at 34th Image Forum Festival in Tokyo (2020) and the Silver Dove Award at 64th DOK Leipzig (2021).
XIE Qun, 1991 born in Hebei, graduated from the Third Studio of the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in 2018, and currently lives and works in Beijing.
Xie Qun’s art practice is presented in a variety of media, including installation, sculpture, video, and painting, focusing on religious anthropology, geography, and folk witchcraft. Based on field research to explore the relationship between ancient tradition and modern society. Through the construction of semi-closed space rituals, Sakuin explores the extension of the current “psychic” matter and body sympathies with divine will, and attempts to invent multiple narratives of the body mythological beyond the sight of history.Main exhibitions include: Xie Qun – TUO YUE Perpetual motion machine, Hunsand Space, Beijing (2022); Xie Qun – Planting Life, M’s Room, Beijing (2023); The Treasure Trove of the Goddess, Aimer Art Museum, Beijing (2024); Egress of Spirit, Ox Warehouse, Macau (2024); Jumping Frogs, Easternization movement & Hunsand Space, Beijing (2023); Cloud Sculpture/Growing River- Walking Nujiang Cloudsculpture, Song Art Museum, Beijing (2023); Pulse, Cai Jin Space, Beijing (2021); Water Falling Stones, Tao Xi Chuan Museum of Art, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (2020); Imaginary Warehouse, CHAO
Art Center, Beijing (2019); Desktop Art Fair, Mumu Art Museum & Tong Gallery+project Cooperation Project, Beijing (2018).
YAN Dafu, 1994 born in Changde city, Hunan Province, China. He graduated from the Department of Oil Painting of the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts with a bachelor’s degree in China in July 2016. Then, In January 2020, he graduated from the Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts London with a master’s degree. Now, he main works and lives in Hangzhou and Shanghai.
The media of his works include installation, painting, and moving images. The main context of the works is related to abstract social issues, especially the interactive relationship of energy, matter, and information in the context of globalization. He hopes that it can be transformed into visual media works with subjec- tive aesthetics through the study of specific problems.
ZHANG Hua, 1979 born in Pu’er, Yunnan Province. He graduated from the Sculpture Department of Yunnan Art Institute, now he lives and works in Kunming.
Zhang Hua has held solo exhibitions and participated in important exhibitions at home and abroad, and his works have been collected by art museums, public spaces and other institutions.Zhang Hua mainly focuses on sculpture and installation. He explores the attributes and characteristics of Yunnan’s folk culture, and explores the connection between nature’s divinity, spirituality and humanity.
About Curator
DAI Xiyun is an independent curator and designer based in Beijing. Her research interests include the desire mechanisms of space, urban media and narratives, and the translation between image, text and space, with a focus on co-production and “locality” in curatorial practice. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Space Design from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) and a Master’s degree in Fine Art from the ArtEZ Dutch Art Institute (DAI). From 2012 to 2014, she worked at MAD Architects, where she was responsible for media strategy, exhibitions and publications. Since 2014, she has engaged in artistic practices through writing, performance and curation. Her articles published in Artforum, LEAP, Ocula and other art journals. In 2016, she joined the alternative art space Institute for Provocation (IFP), where she operated art residency programs and curated exhibitions and events.
From 2019 to early 2024, she worked as a curator at Taikang Space (now the Taikang Art Museum). She was a finalist for the Hyundai Blue Prize 2022, an award for emerging Chinese curators.
