How do we find our bearings between the flux of the starry sky, land, and ocean? How do we regain au-tonomy within the material objects of animal specimens, industrial materials, and the human body? Feng Zhixuan’s solo exhibition “Trek” questions the tension between contemporary geopolitics and individual experience through the lens of blurred geographical boundaries and the decentralization of subject-object relationships.
The exhibition places the body within a seemingly static yet inherently dynamic geographical framework, emphasizing the vulnerability and limitations of the body: terrains that are marked and depicted become oceans and mountains again through human-induced imprints and overlaps, while the body continues to reconstruct both the three-dimensional and horizontal orders. The functionality of hydrofoils and their bat-tleship-like formations illustrate the duality of geopolitics and consumerism. Streetlights, narwhal bone fossils, and palm trees highlight the way an individual perceives geographical forces and the body’s experience within them through industrial imitation of nature. The continuity of time and the persistence of matter is thus fractured, showcasing the intertwining of the body with technology and capital in contemporary society.
Feng Zhixuan’s artistic creations utilize industrial casting techniques, fiberglass, traditional Chinese herbal medicine, and found objects to reconstruct a specimen-like natural form and scene. Sports equipment gains functionality by referencing biology and interacting with the body. On this level, warships and military equipment also represent how power exerts control over geographical space and encroaches upon the body. By juxtaposing plants, archaeological elements, and industrial production materials, Feng Zhixuan mimics the historical traces of materials in his work, revealing the contradictions and precarity of individuals under technological dependency. In the end, we are merely trekking in the drift between the material and symbolic worlds.