Group Exhibition Aranya Art Center, Qinhuangdao
Participating Artists (*commissioned works)
Nadiah Bamadhaj*, Michele Chu*, Duan Zhaonan*, Duan Zhengqu, Köken Ergun, Covey Gong*, Saodat Ismailova, Jane Jin Kaisen, Liang Jiezhen and Wan Qing, Cole Lu*, NAOMI*, Susan Philipsz, Sun Yitian*, Fuyuhiko Takata, Wen Hui, Xie Qun*, Yu Youhan, Zhang Wenzhi
Aranya Art Center is pleased to announce the group exhibition As She Descends, featuring 39 artworks across painting, video, sculpture, sound, and installation by 18 Chinese and international artists, including 17 newly commissioned works. The exhibition will also highlight a selection of archival documents thoughtfully assembled by the curatorial team.
The legend of Lady Meng Jiang, a national-level intangible cultural heritage, has evolved and spread across China for nearly two thousand years, with particular resonance in Qinhuangdao. The story of Lady Meng Jiang, who embarked on a distant journey for love and brought down the Great Wall with her weeping—has spread far and wide in folk oral traditions, and has been constantly recounted in various forms of plays, folk songs, customs, and rituals. It reflects the emotions of the people in different times across different historical periods and has played a lasting role in shaping the imagination, order, and morality of society.
This exhibition invites artists from China and across Asia to respond to this legend, in an attempt to release Lady Meng Jiang from classicalist readings and engage more open-ended, diverse aspects of her figure. It asks: can grief be understood as a form of energy rather than a sign of weakness? Can love be seen as an act of agency rather than of submission?
Long rooted in folklore ,the legend has also served as a marker for mass culture. The exhibition title itself is drawn from a classic pop song from the turn of the century. Modern and contemporary novelists such as Zhang Henshui and Su Tong have written versions of the legend, while Gu Jiegang' s research of Lady Meng Jiang pioneered the field of Chinese folklore studies. These creative and scholarly attempts demonstrate that re-storying is not to indulge nostalgia; but to reposition and renew. Taking "restorying" as its methodology, this exhibition invites viewers to consider how "She" might encounter the contemporary after descending from symbolism.
This exhibition is organized by guest curator Yuan Fuca and Damien Zhang, Director of the Aranya Art Center, together with Associate Curator Wu Yiyang and Curatorial Assistant Li Fangwen. The exhibition is on view from September 21, 2025, through March 1, 2026.
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