Humans and nature have never truly been apart.
Sixi Museum is delighted to announce our thematic group exhibition The Second Skin: From Flesh to Interstellar, opening on July 28.
The classical narrative of nature as a bountiful mother has evolved beyond simple symbiosis in contemporary times into profound, intricate resonance. Humanity yearns to break free from earthly constraints toward the unknown cosmic order, yet our bodies and lives perpetually breathe and fluctuate within material surroundings. These environments form humanity's vast outer skin, intertwining with our physical boundaries and inner selves.
Humans and nature have never truly been apart.
Centered on the core metaphor of skin to frame human-environment relations, this exhibition gathers eight artists from China, the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland and the UAE. Together, they examine how the environment acts as a medium enveloping existence, emotion and social shifts, reflecting modern living conditions and the vitality of the human spirit.
Starting with corporeality, the artists measure nature through direct physical contact with primeval forests. They root identity and historical memory within alien soils, interrogate industrial landscapes of modernity and engage metaphysical deliberations on being amid shifting time and technology, ultimately arriving at futuristic ecological visions. Layer upon layer of this symbolic skin accumulates and thickens, stretching all the way to cosmic stardust.
Sixi Museum invites you to experience this expansive, mutable, agentic "second skin" in the gallery. Witness the mutual remembrance and co-formation of humans and nature, and touch the boundless possibilities spanning matter and algorithms, flesh and stardust.