My reflections on the three remarkable artists, Theaster Gates (@theastergates ), Maxime Cavajani (@maximecavajani ), and Liu Shuai (@_liu_shuai ), and their exhibition at Jia Yuan Hai Museum as part of the Shanghai Biennale (Kitty Scott, @curator99 ), have just been published in a new article for ADF Webmagazine (@aoyama_design_forum ).
Through three distinct perspectives, their works share a common value: they propose a condition of coexistence in which histories, bodies, and environments remain deeply intertwined, unfolding across multiple scales, from the spiritual, to the collective, and down to the minute world of insects 🪲
#shanghaibiennale #contemporaryart #morethanhuman #materiality
As the Shanghai Biennale comes to a close, it is difficult to imagine this project coming down—to accept that something so expansive, so alive with conversation and exchange, is entering another phase.
And yet, what remains feels even more important. The dialogues this exhibition has sparked, the encounters it has made possible, and the ways in which artists have shaped and stretched its contours will continue to resonate far beyond its physical form. In Shanghai, a city that holds such dynamism and complexity, this project opened new grounds for curatorial thinking—testing what it means to build an exhibition that is responsive, porous, and deeply engaged with its context.
I want to extend my deepest gratitude to @curator99 , whose vision held this project with such clarity and conviction—guiding it with a generosity of thought that continues to resonate. And to my co-curator, @xue77 —working alongside you has been a rare and meaningful experience. In the space of our collaboration, I have learned deeply, and grown in ways that will continue to unfold. And to our architects, your magic continues to animate our work @rachaporn_ch and I’m changed by our collaboration. And to my colleague and friend @katherinecal for our public conversation which helped me process what this project has represented.
Endings like this are never simple. But they hold within them the promise of everything that has been set in motion and that is thanks to all the participating artists that have joined this adventure. (Yes, all 67 of you!) ✨
Closing this month, the 15th Shanghai Biennale (@shanghaibiennale ) features Allora & Calzadilla’s Phantom Forest, presented under the curatorship of Kitty Scott as part of the exhibition Does the flower hear the bee? It can be experienced at @powerstationofart from 8 November 2025 to 31 March 2026. Walking through the installation feels like wandering in a living garden, where flowers “hear” the vibrations of bee wings, and every step awakens new sensory connections. The biennale explores new modes of communication between artwork, audience, and environment, offering encounters at the intersection of human and nonhuman intelligence. Phantom Forest is a striking installation that invites reflection on history, ecology, and sensory relationships.
📸:powerstationofart
When eyes come down from the hills
Miguel Fernández de Castro
April 3 - October 31, 2026
Please join us for the opening celebrations:
Thursday, April 2
Miguel Fernández de Castro in conversation with FIA Director Kitty Scott: 5-5:45 PM | Fogo Island Cinema
Opening Reception: 5:45-7 PM | Fogo Island Gallery
Miguel Fernández de Castro is a visual artist. Working across photography, video, sculpture, and writing, his practice addresses how ecological and violent regimes intertwine in the production of space and memory. His work has been presented at venues such as the Shanghai Biennale, Museo Tamayo, Museo Jumex, Museo MARCO, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, Storefront for Art & Architecture, Ballroom Marfa, Whitechapel Gallery, Frac Centre –Val de Loire, Ashkal Alwan, among others. He was a fellow of the FONCA Young Creators program in 2012 and 2019. He was a member of the National System of Art Creators of Mexico. Based in the Sonora–Arizona borderlands, he is co-director of Altar Research Center.
This exhibition on Fogo Island unifies two distinct landscapes through an understanding of geographic specificity and lived crises that can be revealed and recognized through art.
The 15th Shanghai Biennale, titled “Does the flower hear the bee?”, ends on March 31, 2026.
Chief Curator | @curator99 (Kittty Scott)
@powerstationofart #ShanghaiBiennale
#KolmeGluExploresShanghai
Curated by Kitty Scott with Xue Tan, and Daisy Desrosiers, the 15th Shanghai Biennial: Does the Flower Hear the Bee? brings together 67 individual and collective practices from around the globe into a quiet yet powerful constellation of conversations, each oriented toward our more-than-human world, shaped through relation and reciprocity. With deepest gratitude for this beautiful invitation to centre the backbone of my practice, a new and growing set of works on paper, The Kamal 1-21 (2025), is on view at the Power Station through March 31, 2026.
A handful of moments captured here, unfolding across the Power Station, often in direct conversation with one another, all on view for the first time in Shanghai. If you are able, do go: the final touches on Allora & Calzadilla’s Phantom Forest; Tania Candiani’s canopy calls answered by Ami Yamasaki’s voice responses; Shuvinai Ashoona’s visions of home alongside Kosen Ohtsubo’s ikebana shelters and Aki Inomata’s beaver carvings. Miguel Fernandez and Francis Alÿs’s torch studies and Walid Raad’s Museum of Mortal Guilt. The shadows that fall at night across Masaomi Yasunaga’s cascading staircase vessels and Haegue Yang’s blinds, Lotus Kang’s finite drawings in light and Rohini Devasher’s One Hundred Thousand Suns. The sacred ribs in Shao Fan’s sprawling northern ocean whale and Lena Bui’s stretched paintings on silk, with stories conspiring with the stars and told under the moon by Amar Kanwar. —And of course, Rirkrit Tiravanija’s refuge (and cure).
@powerstationofart@curator99@xue77@daisy_desrosiers #alloraandcalzadilla @tcandiani@yamasakiami #shuvinaiashoona @kosenohtsubo.ikebana@akiinomata@miguelfernandezdecastro@francis_alys_official #walidraad @masaomi_yasunaga@yanghaegue@lotuslkang@rohinidevasher@1900shaoyuhan #lenabui @amarkanwar2017@tiravanija_team_cm
第十五屆上海雙年展以「花兒聽到蜜蜂了嗎？」作為提問，它不是浪漫，而是一個關於感知的挑戰：在這個充滿不確定性與全球性危機的年代，我們是否還有能力去理解世界、並調整自己去適應其中紛繁交錯的智慧形態？
展覽的核心不只關注人類智能，也把「非人類智能」納入思考：不同生命體之間的互動關係、感官與知覺的交換，以及我們如何與「人類以外的世界」重新建立更深層的聯結。
在這個脈絡裡，日本藝術家 Aki Inomata 的作品《How to Carve a Sculpture》（2018–ongoing）成為一個精準的回應。她將木頭放入日本五家動物園的海狸欄舍，讓海狸以本能啃咬、築巢、磨牙的行為在木頭上留下痕跡。作品的雕塑性並非出自人手，而是生成於習性、材料、時間與生物行為的共同作用。之後，她再透過雕塑家合作或 CNC 技術製作放大版複製，每件都是原件的三倍。
這件作品真正尖銳的地方在於：它逼迫我們重新回答「作者」是誰。是人？是海狸？是木頭密結的阻抗？是早已潛伏其中、雕刻完成後仍繼續鑽洞的天牛？它呈現的不是單一創作，而是一種層層嵌套的協作系統，多重能動者共同生成形態。
也因此，作品提供了一種詩意但高度現實的模型：在自然與世界面前，創作與存在從來不是支配與控制，而是協商、互相塑形，甚至彼此讓渡。這或許也是上海雙年展想提醒我們的事：藝術並不是逃離危機，而是一種重新練習感知、重新理解關係的方式。
我們要問的從來不只是「花兒聽到蜜蜂了嗎？」而是我們，是否還聽得見？
The 15th Shanghai Biennale opens with a question: “Does the flower hear the bee?” not as romance, but as a test of perception. In an era shaped by uncertainty and global crisis, are we still capable of understanding the world, and adjusting ourselves to the entangled forms of intelligence within it?
The exhibition looks beyond human intelligence, turning toward non-human intelligence the sensory exchanges between life forms, and the possibility of rebuilding deeper connections with a world beyond the human.
Within this framework, Japanese artist @akiinomata How to Carve a Sculpture (2018–ongoing) offers a sharp response. She places wood inside beaver enclosures at five zoos across Japan, allowing instinctive behaviors gnawing, nesting, sharpening teeth to leave marks on the material. The sculptural form is not crafted by human hands, but emerges through habit, matter, time, and animal activity. The pieces are later enlarged into replicas three times the original size ,through sculptural collaboration or CNC cutting.
The work ultimately collapses the myth of singular authorship. Who is the author the human, the beaver, the resistance of the wood, or the insects that continue tunneling even after the carving is “finished”? What emerges is a nested collaboration among multiple agents, offering a poetic model that shifts our relationship with nature from control toward co-creation.
The question is never only whether the flower hears the bee but whether we still can.
#artseek #tintinstudio策展事務所 #powerstationofart #akiinomata #shanghai
本屆上海雙年展以「花園」作為一種觀看的提案，重新安排感知的次序。
在這裡，觀眾像蜜蜂一樣，靠近、停留、移動，都是採集訊息的方式；而作品像花朵般以不同的頻率回應觀看，不急著被解釋，也不需要被快速讀懂。
因此，這座花園沒有標準路線。觀眾無須依循既定動線前進，因為繞行、回望與停留本身，將生成與作品相遇的方式。行走的路徑，也成為穿越這座花園的個人節奏。
本屆雙年展提出的關鍵提醒是：先聆聽，再理解。在結論形成之前，先停留於「尚未命名」的狀態，讓作品先發出訊號，再緩慢靠近。
展覽所關心的，也不只是作品如何被觀看。它同時指向一個更根本的問題：當人類與非人類共享同一個世界，是否仍能找到新的協調方式，重新建立關係、共同生存。
This edition of the Shanghai Biennale proposes the “garden” as a way of looking one that rearranges the order of perception.
Here, viewers are like bees: approaching, pausing, and moving become methods of gathering information. The works, like flowers, respond in different frequencies without urgency to be explained, and without the need to be immediately understood.
For this reason, the garden offers no fixed route.
Visitors do not need to follow a predetermined path, because detours, returns, and moments of stillness shape how encounters with the works come into being. The act of walking becomes a personal rhythm through which the garden is traversed.
The Biennale’s key reminder is simple: listen first, then understand.Before reaching a conclusion, remain in a state of the “not-yet-named” allow the works to send their signals first, and then approach slowly.
What the exhibition asks, ultimately, is not only how artworks are viewed. It points to a more fundamental question: as humans and non-human beings share the same world, can new forms of coordination still be found so that relationships may be rebuilt, and coexistence made possible?
#artseek #tintinstudio策展事務所 #powerstationofart #shanghai #shanghaibiennale
An entrance is not always a clear beginning.Sometimes it is a state like a garden without walls. You may not know when you entered, yet your way of sensing the world has already shifted.
In this edition of the Shanghai Biennale, two works take on this role.Huang Yongping’s Peach Blossom Spring is one of them.
Rather than demanding immediate understanding, the work allows the viewer to remain in a state before conclusions are formed.Here, Peach Blossom Spring is not a utopian escape, but a structure attuned to our present condition: when order appears gentle, familiar, even idealized, can we still sense that we are being guided?
This reflects the condition addressed by the Shanghai Biennial world shaped less by clear oppositions or definitive answers, and more by narratives and systems that subtly reposition us.
Huang Yongping offers no explanation. Instead, the viewer gradually realizes that they are already situated within a set of relations not observing from the outside, but participating.
The significance of Peach Blossom Spring lies not in what it represents, but in its role as an entrance one that establishes the conditions of viewing before interpretation begins.
入口，有時並不是一個明確的起點。它更像是一種狀態，一座沒有圍牆的花園，你並不知道自己什麼時候走了進來，卻已經開始以不同的方式感知世界。
在本屆上海雙年展中，正有兩件作品承擔了這樣的角色。
黃永砯的《桃花源記》，是其中之一。
它不要求被迅速理解，而是讓觀者先停留在一種尚未形成結論的狀態之中。在這裡，《桃花源》並非關於逃離現實的烏托邦想像，而是一種更貼近當代處境的結構：當秩序以溫和、熟悉、甚至理想化的形式出現時，我們是否仍能察覺自己正在被引導？
這正呼應了本屆上海雙年展所關注的狀態，世界不再以清楚的對立或明確的答案運作，而是透過敘事與系統，慢慢調整我們所站的位置。
黃永砯沒有給出解釋。他讓觀眾在進入展覽的過程中，逐漸意識到自己已經身處某種關係之中不是旁觀，而是參與。
因此，《桃花源記》的重要性不在於它象徵了什麼，而在於它作為入口，先一步建立了觀看的條件。在這裡，觀看不再是為了立即理解，而是一種對自身位置保持感知開放的狀態。
#artseek #tintinstudio策展事務所 #shanghai #powerstationofart #上海
在本屆上海雙年展中，兩位藝術家的作品都從材料出發，但關注的並不是形式本身，而是材料如何在歷史與制度中被使用、被移動，並再次被定位。
@ngahina_hohaia 以毛利傳統的 Poi（繩球）作為創作起點。這類物件原本與儀式、節奏與訊息傳遞密切相關，但在展場中，觀眾很快會意識到一個關鍵差異，材料發生了轉換。
羊毛毯取代了傳統纖維，使這件作品在文化熟悉度與歷史不安感之間形成張力。它不只是延續傳統形式，而是讓一種帶有殖民背景的材料進入儀式語境，進而質疑當代展覽機制中，文化與權力之間的關係。
@d_gnidrah 的《伍利紅》選擇了一種反向的節奏。作品圍繞羊毛氈與紅色土壤展開，但關鍵不在於材料被如何展示，而在於它們如何移動，又如何被送回。
透過將來自伍拉賓達的土壤歸還原鄉，作品將注意力從「展示」轉向「行動本身」，讓土地不再只是被觀看的對象，而是一段持續被維繫的關係。
將這兩件作品並置觀看，可以感受到一種微妙的對話：一件作品透過材料的錯置，讓歷史進入當下；另一件作品則透過行動的回返，讓移動暫時停下。
它們都不急於給出答案，而是讓觀眾重新思考：在今日的雙年展體制中，材料、歷史與觀看之間，仍然如何彼此牽動。
At the 15th Shanghai Biennale, two artists approach history through material not as form, but as movement.
NGAHINA HOHAIA departs from the Māori poi, traditionally tied to ceremony and transmission. In the exhibition, however, wool blankets replace customary fibers. This material shift introduces a subtle tension: a colonial material enters a ritual system, unsettling any straightforward reading of tradition and raising questions about how culture and power operate within contemporary exhibition frameworks.
D. HARDING’s Woori red slows things down. Working with wool felt and red soil from Woorabinda, the focus is not on display but on return. Soil that once traveled is brought back, redirecting attention from representation to action, and reframing land as an ongoing relationship rather than a resource.
Seen together, one work introduces friction through displacement; the other pauses movement through return.
Both invite a reconsideration of how material, history, and viewing remain entangled today.
#artseek #tintinstudio策展事務所 #shanghaibiennale #powerstationofart #dharding #ngahinahohaia #雙年展
走進第15屆上海雙年展，一樓大廳上方懸掛的作品，成為觀眾進入展覽前最先感知到的「場域狀態」。
由第15屆上海雙年展-策展人龍奕瑭，帶領觀眾導覽，介紹這件位於展覽核心位置的代表性作品由藝術組合 Allora & Calzadilla 創作的《Phantom Forest（森之幻影）》。
作品以大量懸浮於空中的合成花朵構成，一片看似不存在的森林殘影：無根、無枝、漂浮不定。這些花朵並非靜止裝置，其運動並非來自展場內的氣流，而是由加勒比海貿易風的即時數據所驅動，那些曾經承載殖民、遷徙、風暴與歷史的風，透過資料轉譯，重新在此生成動態。
在龍奕瑭的導覽中，他指出，這件作品並不試圖敘述一段線性的歷史，而是建立一個「記憶系統」：一個關於流離、轉移、消失與轉化的生態。
森林在此不再是具體的地景，而是一種缺席的形態；花朵懸浮於時間斷裂的瞬間，讓「不可見之物」以感知的方式浮現。空氣成為見證者，也成為檔案。
作為觀眾進入雙年展的第一個視覺與感知節點，這件作品不只是標誌性的空間裝置，更回應了本屆雙年展對於歷史殘留、身體位置與世界流動狀態的核心提問。
ART SEEK at the 15th Shanghai Biennale
Floating above the main atrium of the Power Station of Art is one of the most iconic and conceptually charged installations of the 15th Shanghai Biennale: Phantom Forest (2025) by artist duo Allora & Calzadilla.
Composed of thousands of synthetic blossoms suspended midair, the work evokes the haunting presence of a forest that no longer stands rootless, unanchored, in constant drift. These flowers are not moved by local air currents, but by live data from Caribbean trade winds winds that once carried ships, storms, and colonial histories across the ocean.
In his guided introduction, curator Long Yitang describes the work not as a depiction of history, but as the construction of a memory system an ecology shaped by displacement, migration, and atmospheric memory.
Here, the forest becomes absence. The air becomes a witness. The invisible becomes felt. The work refuses linear narratives, instead offering a sensory condition where history persists in motion, in breath, in what cannot be held still.
Positioned at the entry threshold of the Biennale, Phantom Forest functions as both a spatial and conceptual portal. It invites viewers to begin their journey not by looking forward, but by attuning to what lingers in wind, in space, in suspended time.
This is not a static installation. It is a living archive.
A phantom that floats not to disappear, but to insist on being felt.
#artseek #tintinstudio策展事務所 #上海雙年展 #雙年展 #上海 #shanghai #shanghaiart #powerstationofart #上海當代博物館 #biennale #shanghaibiennale #alloracalzadilla
