The Cut and the Crystal
Artist: Yihan Pan
Material：Transparent mineral block
Crystals form slowly, guided by natural forces; while the excavation of mines is abrupt, driven by human intention. Her work inlays a microscopic image of a grain of sea salt (natural crystal) on a square mineral, bringing these two realities into dialogue.
Observed through a microscope, the salt crystal is like a miniature mine, with its sharp edges and layered geometric shapes echoing the traces left by mining. However, the salt grains gradually emerge under evaporation and the erosion of time, and the open-pit mine is like a violent cut, an attempt to measure, dissect and understand the earth.
This mineral block is like a mixed ”fossil“, connecting the micro and the macro, connecting natural formation and artificial cutting, and triggering people‘s reflection on the temporality and cyclical evolution of materials.
#contemporaryart #landart #artwork #149art
STRATA | No tear will miss the sea
Material: Inflatable boat, Gas cylinders, Flamethrowers
Music: Tim Hecker - Analog Paralysis, 1978
Artist: She Yangsibo
Description:
From sunset on August 12, 2025, until sunrise on August 13, the artist will continuously ignite flames on the water surface of an abandoned mining pit in northern Xinjiang, China. The boat carrying the flames allows the fire to remain throughout the night, spreading across the surface of the pit
#contemporaryart #curation #landart #149art #offsite
STRATA | No Tear Will Miss The Sea
Artist: She Yangsibo
Material: Inflatable boat, Gas cylinders, Flamethrowers
Description:
From sunset on August 12, 2025, until sunrise on August 13, the artist will continuously ignite flames on the water surface of an abandoned mining pit in northern Xinjiang, China. The boat carrying the flames allows the fire to remain throughout the night, spreading across the surface of the pit
#landart #artist #contemporary art
A glimpse into the physical works from STRATA
Set against the vast terrains of the Gobi and quarry, the pieces engage quietly with the site — excavating fragments of time, memory, and form.
More soon.
#contemporaryart #curation #149art #offsite #exhibition #offsiteexhibition #monument
What happens when a landscape fractures - spatially, temporally, politically?
Strata unfolds across two adjacent sites in Toli: a paused quarry and a nearby stretch of wilderness. Once part of a continuous terrain, they now bear traces of rupture - between extraction and reclamation, human presence and natural persistence.
Taking “layering” as both method and metaphor, the exhibition reconsiders temporality not as linear sedimentation, but as a speculative and dynamic process - where past, present, and potential cohabit uneasily.
Drawing from Elizabeth Grosz’s concept of material temporality and Karen Barad’s theory of spacetimemattering, Strata explores matter as something not merely inert, but charged - thick with memory, contingency, and the capacity to transform.
We extend our deepest thanks to the 40+ participating artists whose works inhabit and complicate these layered tensions, and to all collaborators whose support made this project possible.
📍 Exhibition sites: Quarry Site & Gobi Site
🛰 Exact coordinates in bio
Curated by 1:4:9 Art, Wild Art Project
Presented with the generous support of:
Toli County People’s Government | Department of Sculpture, Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University | Xinjiang Institute of Public Art | Nighttasking Art | Hongsheng Copper Sculpture | Beijing Railway Institute
#STRATA2025 #contemporaryart #posthumangeologies #materialtemporality #speculativearchaeology #sitespecific #Xinjiang #149Art
⛏ This is a quarry rewound in time. Boulders pulled back, fractures sealed, workers retreat—industry falls silent. Walking against the logic of extraction, we see not just layers of matter, but slices of time.
Strata unfolds in a quarry in Toli, Xinjiang, exploring the temporal entanglement of industrial remnants and natural regeneration. Through artistic interventions, we view this fractured terrain as a living, open dynamic archive—where human and nonhuman, past and future, emotion and geology flow together.
🛰 Open call for artists
Respond critically, poetically, or materially to this unfinished terrain.
📍 Location: Toli county, Xinjiang, China
🗓 Exhibition: August 5 – 20, 2025
✍️ Deadline: July 25, 2025
🎨 Medium: Any (encouraging experimental & interdisciplinary works)
📩 Submit to our email:
• proposal title
• concept (100–200 words)
• 3–5 images or sketches (existing works welcome)
• short bio (max 100 words) & contact info
💬 Support
Accommodation, local meals, transport within Toli/Karamay, and basic production help provided.
Supported by 1:4:9, Tsinghua University Academy of Arts & Design, and Toli county government.
#landart #opencall #residency #contemporaryart #curating #artexhibition #natureart #visualculture #sitespecific
⛰️ OPEN CALL
We’re inviting artists, thinkers, and makers to join STRATA, an offsite project unfolding across two striking sites in Toli County, Xinjiang — a marble quarry and a Gobi terrain that once lay beneath an ancient ocean.
STRATA explores layers of time, geology, memory, and speculation. It’s about thinking, sensing, and creating through the fractures of past and future, human and non-human, material and affect.
Selected proposals will receive on-site accommodation, meals, local transport within Toli County, and partial production support. Please note that international flights are not covered.
🗓 Deadline: July 25, 2025
🛠 Installation: Aug 5 – Aug 20, 2025
Check the last picture or our website for submission details.
#opencall #artresidency #sitespecific #landart #Xinjiang #contemporaryart #futurearcheology #artinnature #artandecology
Open Call: Strata
Our second offsite exhibition in Toli, Xinjiang, China. Check out our website for submission details. Deadline 25th July, 2025 23:59PM.
