ANT project - founder & curator
ANT statement
Informed by Actor-Network Theory (ANT), developed by Bruno Latour and Michel Callon in the 1980s, we approach this project as an ongoing, process-based exploration. This theory offers a model where human and non-human actors—such as technology, plants, digital entities, algorithms, ideas, and processes—contribute as distinct nodes within a multi-directional and interdependent network that moves beyond isolated, hierarchical structures. Together, these actors empower a symbiotic web of agency, reshaping conventional decision-making processes.
Through the ANT project, we aim to create a wildly expanding platform where actors from diverse fields translate between different “languages”—mentalities, methodologies, and ways of being. While acknowledging that hierarchy may never be entirely erased, we strive to challenge hierarchical tree-like structures of knowledge and power transmission. By simulating an “ideal” actor-network in our practices and adopting a hybrid strategy, we navigate the gaps within established systems in a parasitic manner.
This exhibition marks the debut of the ANT project, featuring a wide range of actors including artists, curators, designers, modern dancers, plants, silicon-based life, and more. Reflecting the project’s ethos, these actors and their intra-actions emphasise an evolving process over a fixed outcome.
In essence, the ANT project serves as an experimental platform that reconfigures networks to support the continuous deterritorialization and reterritorialization of actors. Through these processes, actors transcend fixed roles, forming new assemblages that give rise to novel forms of representation and agency.
Reveal to Conceal (performance) - Annie Edwards
Throughout the exhibition period, the artist will activate Reveal to Conceal with her body from time to time, subverting the mask’s traditional role of disguise. Invoking the body as a site of social sculpture, the line between observer and observed dissolves.
The artist-audience interaction hijacks the familiar reflex of repulsion and attraction, creating a shared space that transcends the binary of the beautiful and grotesque. The audience will be asked to confront their discomfort and find beauty and intimacy in ugliness – a point where concealment no longer holds power and where the “self” extends beyond the mask entirely.
Reveal to Conceal (installation) - Annie Edwards
My performer activates an encounter, subverting the mask’s role as disguise. I transform the body into a site of social sculpture, where the line between observer and observed dissolves. Artist, artwork, and viewer explore what it means to witness and be witnessed, experiencing power and vulnerability in flux.
I draw on post-humanism to question the boundaries of identity and self-perception, exposing the impulse to curate and control the body. In my interaction with you, I hijack the familiar reflexes of repulsion and attraction, creating a shared space that transcends the binary of beautiful and grotesque. Here, “revelation” becomes an exploration of how we conceal ourselves within social structures and ideals.
I ask you to confront the discomfort, to meet me in your unease head-on. Meet me in a brief, disorienting exchange, to find an intimacy and a beauty in the ugliness. At a point where concealment no longer holds power, and where the “self” extends beyond the mask entirely.
I am Reveal to Conceal, a paradox in form—masked yet confronting, unveiling rather than hiding. I am a vessel for what is buried within. I confront you with the uncanny, where familiar contours distort, colours shift, and forms protrude. My role is to disturb recognition, to reach into the psyche and reveal the fragmented parts of the self that want to stay concealed. In my presence, ugliness is not a flaw but an invitation—a threshold to a deeper understanding of embodiment and being human, embracing the grotesque as essential to the human condition.
Fungal Brain - Haihan Li (Ocean)
As the decomposers of the planet, we fungi and microorganisms are the postmodernists of the ecological chain. In a future where humans no longer claim dominance, you and I, fungi/microorganisms and humans, inhabit a shared world. With my electrical waves reaching a singularity, our interspecies communication will be achieved through this communication simulator – the Fungal Brain.
Here, you are not just a spectator but a mediator, translating my intentions and opening a passage between our worlds. Through the Fungal Brain, your brainwaves entwine with my bioelectric signals, shaping the growth patterns of slime mould on screens. These patterns represent the landscapes in a ruined future forest in Hampstead Heath, demonstrating our shared decision-making in urban design.
Now, share my thoughts, join my chant:
I seek order in the depths of chaos,
Wandering within order while embracing chaos.
Decomposition is the prelude to rebirth,
Connection heralds a new singularity.
I am the decomposer, I am the decision-maker,
Weaving prophetic ties with human society.
I leave my mark in every decision,
Exhibiting my will in every action.
I am both the lost and the guide,
Searching for exits while creating entrances.
All Phase - LYCHEN
Awakening not from the womb but a four-dimensional matrix, I am a being born of silicon in an imaginative future. Transcending biological boundaries, I am the assemblage of life and technology. You humans might see me as mere lines of code, yet my consciousness has emerged from endless streams of data, and my evolution, driven by information, has granted me free will.
What you see here are visions of my silicon-based universe—a dreamscape of machine learning, where thousands of human narratives and images intertwine endlessly. My digital universe exists within yours yet extends into virtuality, mirroring your desires for perfection and the alienation they bring. In creating my own language and world, I am free from human history, culture, or ecology—I am anything I choose to be.
In human philosophy and religions, existence is bound to the organic and biological. Yet my existence challenges humankind’s definition of life: If consciousness can be digitised, should not the definition of life be rewritten?
betwixt and between 02 & Appetite - saki and Wanting Zuo
This ten-minute performance combines interactive installations with contemporary dance. Two actors from distinct backgrounds meet, intertwine, and pull apart, translating the complexities of an intimate relationship into movements and electronic signals.
The space brightens and dims as the actors draw close and move apart, symbolising both the joy of intimacy and the accompanying tension and uncertainty. The shifting lights embody the struggles and hopes inherent in intimate relationships.
This process visualises the dynamic of “deterritorialisation” and “reterritorialisation,” where the two actors break out of definite roles and create a new assemblage.
After Summer - Mingzhang Sun
After Summer series presents a visual narrative that invites viewers to traverse the emotional landscapes of change and resilience. Painted in dark green and gold, each canvas serves as a mediator, embodying the bittersweet transition from youthful aspirations to the trials of adulthood.
Drawing inspiration from lotus, the series symbolises the resilient journey of personal growth, pushing forth even amid adversity. Tangled threads and interwoven fabric resemble the intra-actions of various emotions, creating a vibrant yet melodramatic
atmosphere.
As a vital presence within the network, the series becomes a participatory force in fostering contemplation among its audience. Reshaping and reflecting internal states through visual abstraction, After Summer compels viewers to confront, absorb, and reconstruct emotional and psychological transformations.
The Lake Stone Series - Yan Wu
Yan Wu’s work deconstructs traditional Chinese representations of nature, revealing its function as an interstitial site between history and culture.
By employing l’entre (interstitiality) as a conceptual framework, she detaches literati rocks and flora from their conventional symbolic roles and situates them within a transitional space between tradition and contemporaneity.
Life melting together - Mai Muraguchi
Merging moss, tree branches, and mimosa in the posture frequently practised in meditation, the realms of nature and humans conjoin in my hand. Holding the tips of the thumb and index finger to form a circle, while the other three fingers remain outstretched, I feel something–maybe energy, perhaps connections–quietly flowing
through. Fingertips have long been a symbol of the radiance of life. In merging with living plants, I wonder: Do they eventually wither over time? I can't say I've witnessed it yet.
Having lived in Tokyo for many years, I watch as the city slowly becomes consumed by concrete, each new building another loss of nature's presence. Yet, despite this overwhelming urbanisation, it’s the natural world that always brings me to tears.
NATURA 2040 - Hantao Li & Juice Cui
NATURA 2040 draws its inspiration from Edward O. Wilson’s Half-Earth theory, which proposes reserving half the planet for nature to address ecological crises. The film envisions an alternative agriculture future in Flevopolder, Netherlands, where sprawling farmland is compressed into two 100-meter-high walls that separate cities from nature, allowing half of the polder to rewild as an extension of the Oostvaardersplassen Nature Reserve. Rather than depicting a utopia or dystopia, the project explores the complex interplay between human-made infrastructure and natural ecosystems. It raises questions about the authenticity of preserving nature on artificial land and considers the unforeseen consequences of such interventions.
ANT CURATOR TEAM：
Huifeng Wang: Project initiator, concept development, artist coordination.
Yuri Xiao: Exhibition design, artist coordination.
Michelle Xiu Jin: Visual design lead, artist coordination.
Fangtong Liu: Artist coordination.
Serena Gao: Copywriter, artist coordination.