A Darkness Shimmering in the Light
June 22–July 30, 2023
Tang Contemporary Art is pleased to present A Darkness Shimmering in the Light, a new solo exhibition by Liu Yujia. The exhibition is curated by art historian Mia Yu and held at Tang Contemporary Art Beijing 1st Space.
Taking the pervasive, glimmering and all-immersive light in the boreal forests as an embodied trope, A Darkness Shimmering in the Light explores the notion of the frontier from an eco-poetic perspective through Liu Yujia’s two series of recent films shot on location in Xinjiang and in China’s Northeast. Looming in the backdrop of these works are the majestic contours of two prominent mountain ranges, the Kunlun Mountains and the Changbai Mountains, as well as two Asian frontiers, both suffused with complex histories, geopolitics and extractive economies. The exhibition highlights the artist’s approach to film as a form of eco-fiction that is intricately interwoven with 16mm film, drone footage, ethnography, local mythology, folklore, and embodied experiences. By juxtaposing the artist’s works on two frontier regions, the exhibition explores Liu Yujia’s eco-fiction as a space where historical, ecological, spiritual and personal dimensions intersect, and also an experimental approach to evoking emotive and affective forms of kinship between the human and non-human.
Liu Yujia began her exploration of frontier regions in 2015 by filming Black Ocean in Karamay, which was completed in 2016. Since then, she has ventured further into the Xinjiang hinterland, where she witnessed melting glaciers, dried-up riverbeds resulting from climate change, ancient civilizations buried under desert sands, and landscapes shattered by excessive exploitation of resources. Liu Yujia’s film Treasure Hunt, for which filming started in 2019 and finished in 2021, weaves together two excavation narratives: one is Aurel Stein’s early 20th-century archaeological expeditions to the Kunlun Mountains and Hotan region; the other is the ethnic Uyghur laborers digging the dried riverbed of Yurungkax River for precious jade. With her works in Xinjiang, Liu Yujia began to perceive the landscape of the frontier as a portal for travelling through time and space, bridging history with the realities of the present and the boundless horizons of future imagination.
In 2022, Liu Yujia shifted her focus to the vast landmass of China’s Northeast, further advancing her exploration of the frontier into the ecological realm. The paradoxical tension between political separation and ecological inter-connectedness of the Chinese borders captivated Liu Yujia, compelling her to return to Northeast China time and again. Navigating between documentary and fiction, Liu Yujia attempts to transcend the territorial boundaries imposed by modern countries, invoking an ecological poetics unsuppressed by geopolitical forces.
Discursive programs
June 24, Drone, Ethnography and Travelogue Remixed: Liu Yujia’s Eco-Fiction of Northeast Asia, talk by Mia Yu (art historian and curator) and Liu Yujia (artist), organized by Yenching Scholars Forum, Peking University
June 25, Embodied Frontiers and Affective-Storytelling, roundtable discussion with Liu Yujia (artist), Mia Yu (art historian and curator), Nikita Yingqian Cai (Deputy Director of Times Museum), Sam Shiyi Qian (curator of McaM), organized by Mia Yu
July 1, The Multispecies Stories of the Changbai Mountains, youth forum with Liu Yujia (artist), Mia Yu (art historian and curator) and Liang Xiaoguang (cinematographer), organized by Mia Yu
About the artist
Liu Yujia graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and obtained her master’s degree from London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. She currently lives and works in Beijing. Liu Yujia explores the blurred boundary between reality and fiction with poetic language. Considering the landscape at Asian frontiers as a vortex of suspended time and space, she weaves documentary footage, literature，ethnography, folklore and travelogue to construct films with embodied and affective experiences.
About the curator
Mia Yu is a Beijing-based art historian, award-winning curator and educator. Her research-based practice centers on resource frontiers, affective ecologies and the eco-poetics from the perspective of Northeast Asia. She leads and curates the research program Extractive Frontiers: Ecological Entanglements from Northeast China and Beyond.
