Nature Through a Glass

REFLEXION is pleased to announce the presentation of the exhibition Nature Through a Glass灵石、赤天与铜炉 curated by curator DAI Xiyun on March 8th, 2025, which will present a series of works from four artists: TANG Han, XIE Qun, YAN Dafu, and ZHANG Hua.

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. 

Text by Dai Xiyun
Translated by Lin Yan

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.