Oracle of Excursion — Solo Exhibition by Jiayi Chen
Oracle of Excursion: Solo Exhibition of Jiayi Chen
Duration: July 13 – August 13, 2025
Artist: Jiayi Chen
Curator: iion Ho
Venue: ART ON SPACE, Foshan
Artist Forum
Date: July 13, 2025, 4:00 PM
Venue: Sensing Bookstore, Foshan, China
Prologue
"Oracle of Excursion": Immersed in the Shadows of Myth, Listening to the Voice of the Land
"Qi Xie records the strange," wrote Zhuangzi. In an age saturated with images, can we still hear the faint murmurs of the earth? In Oracle of Excursion, Chen Jiayi invites viewers into a multisensory mythic journey inspired by the lost Chinese text Qi Xie, constructing a fictional travelogue where photography, writing, and installation converge.
The exhibition unfolds through the narrative of a scholar who, guided by a dream, discovers a fragment of Qi Xie and becomes enmeshed in its vision. Following the path laid out in this imagined travelogue, visitors are led through immersive scenes shaped by image and installation—mist-covered mountains, sentient plants, golden-eyed beasts. Rather than depict mythical figures directly, Chen reawakens an original artistic impulse in which nature and spirit are still one.
Here, mythology is not a story to be told, but a presence that speaks through land and body. Photography becomes a form of deep listening, not control. As philosopher Schelling once said, "Nature is spirit in a state of sleep; spirit is nature that has awakened."
The exhibition is arranged across three rooms. The first introduces the fictional travelogue and sets the mythic tone. The second presents frozen photographic visions—traces of the divine. The third room merges video and installation into a shamanic ritual of viewing, pulling the audience into an experience that is not merely visual, but visceral and immersive.
This is not a documentary of folklore, but a symbolic excavation of archetype and ancestral memory. Between the fractures of image and the shadows of installation, the viewer is invited to encounter ancient echoes still pulsing beneath contemporary life.
Oracle of Excursion is a journey of symbolic return—from surface to depth, from meaning to myth, from seeing to sensing. Like Qi Xie itself, it emerges from a distant dream, yet remains embedded in our collective cultural DNA.
Critic's Note: João Miguel Barros
Curator, photographer, and founder of Perve Gallery; Curator of the Macao Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2022
"As a foreigner shaped by Western cultural values, my response to Chen Jiayi’s photographs can only be one of astonishment, surprise, and enchantment.
Western audiences have often struggled to grasp the depths of Chinese culture. Jiayi’s images, with their veils of mist and interweaving of historical, mythical, and quotidian symbols, deepen this sense of mystery. Some depict ancient stories that still resonate in everyday life; others confront tradition with irony, leading us into dreamlike landscapes. Still others verge on the abstract, offering symbolic layers open to personal interpretation.
Altogether, this is a visual narrative that dazzles and compels, stirring both the senses and the spirit."
About the Artist
Jiayi Chen(b. 1992, Guangzhou, China) holds a BA from Cambridge School of Art (UK) and an MA in Photography from the London College of Communication. His practice arises from a primordial awareness rooted in the land, drawing extensively on mythological imagery and rural aesthetics across southern China. Through theatrical construction, lighting design, and conceptual photography, he crafts mythic visual worlds where metaphor becomes symbol and reality takes on sacred resonance.
Rather than replicate myth, Chen seeks to channel the mythic spirit born from the land—a symbolic vitality that speaks to collective memory and contemporary anxieties alike.
His major ongoing body of work, Qi Xie, is planned in two parts over five years, combining photography, text, sound, and installation. The current exhibition presents the completed first part in full.
Exhibition History (selected)
2025 - Photo Shanghai Group Exhibition, Shanghai, China
2021 - Photo Shanghai Solo Presentation, Shanghai, China
2020 - Liu Haisu Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2020 - Gwangju Art Festival, Gwangju, South Korea
2020 - Mothership × Singulart, New York, USA
2020 - Solo Exhibition, Fan House Art Space, Guangzhou, China
2019 - Siilk Gallery, Athens, Greece
2016 - Platform 14, London, UK