after human: marks the of beasts 人類之後：獸的印記

26 March  —  12 May 2024 (extended)

Tomorrow Maybe, 4/F Eaton HK

Artist 參展藝術家:  

Revital Cohen & Tuur Van Balen (UK 英國/BE 比利時 ), Sungsil Ryu (KR 韓國 ),  Zoë Marden (UK英國/HK 香港 ), Future Host 未來主人  (Tingying Ma 馬汀瀅 & Kang Kang 康康) (US 美國/CN 中國 ), Joy Li 黎佳儀 (CN 中國/US 美國 ), Mui Hoi Ying 梅愷盈  (HK 香港), Hou Ching 侯晴 (HK 香港/DE 德國)  

 "After Human: Marks of the Beasts" explores storytelling as a tool for marking the significant impact of humans on animals. It sheds light on the ideas and figures of animals as an integral part of East Asian cultures, where the ideologies and cosmologies behind them often remain hidden. The exhibition features video, installation, performance, and text-based artworks by local and international artists, including Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen (UK/BE), Sungsil Ryu (KR),  Zoë  Marden (UK/HK), Future Host (Tingying Ma and Kang Kang) (US/CN), Joy Li (CN/US), Mui Hoi Ying (HK), and Hou Ching (HK/DE). These artworks speculate on animals as mythical beings, forms of capital, and objects of aesthetic interest, blending elements of ethnography and fiction. Taking all the different narratives on animals built into the works as a starting point, this exhibition attempts to world a human-animal world that is not from the viewpoint of utilitarian individualism - human-centric, profit-maximizing, desire-driven - and instead envisions humans becoming a collective with other species through symbiosis, kinship, or even shapeshifting. The Earth, it seems, will be for the survival of all species. 

「人類之後：獸的印記」探索講故事作為工具標記人類對動物的重要影響，並闡明動物的觀念和形象作為東亞文化中不可或缺的一部分，以及被隱藏起來的背後意識形態和宇宙觀。這展覽展示了來自本地和國際藝術家，包括Revital Cohen和Tuur Van Balen（英國/比利時）、Sungsil Ryu（韓國）、 Zoë Marden（英國/香港）、未來主人（馬汀瀅、康康）（美國/中國）、黎佳儀（中國/美國）及梅愷盈（香港）及侯晴 (香港/德國) 的錄像、裝置、展演、文字作品。這些作品通過融合民族誌和虛構的形式，推想動物作為神話的存在、資本形式和審美對象。本次展覽由作品中對動物的各種不同敘述為起點，試圖建構了一個人與動物世界，不從那麼功利個人主義 －以人為中心、利潤最大化、慾望驅動的觀點出發，並想像人類透過共生、親密關係甚至變形與其他物種成為集體的可能性。地球似乎將是為了所有物種的生存的地方。

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In the Han writing system, the term "Beast (獸)" first appeared in oracle bone inscriptions. The character for "Beast (獸)" is composed of the characters for "Single (單)" and "Dog (犬)." The character "Single (單)" symbolizes hunting tools, which humans would use alongside hunting dogs. In the term "Beast (獸)," we can see the convergence of three domains: humans, animals, and technology. Early human civilizations developed two major technologies related to animals: hunting tools and domestication. These technologies led to two major technological leaps in human history and gave rise to hunting culture and agricultural culture. At the same time, the term "beast (獸)" also reflects two distinct attitudes towards different species - wild animals to be conquered by humans and domesticated animals that become companions. The former sets up a survival dichotomy between humans and animals, leading to various power dynamics based on dominance and submission, such as labor and master, commodity and consumer, and spectacle and audience. The latter involves a mutual beneficiation of humans and animals, forming part of a natural and cultural community, such as the theory of symbiosis in biology, the belief in animism, and the ability of shapeshifting in literature. "After Human: Marks of the Beasts" interrogates issues related to humans and animals, including the narrative systems that differentiate the two, the technologies developed for different species, the ideologies and cosmologies behind them, and the thresholds between various binary classifications.

In "After Human: Marks of the Beasts," looking through the complex and diverse lens ranging from humans to animals, the artists use storytelling as a tool to contain their fluid imaginations and figurations of prey, pet, pest, ornamental animal, monster, sacred creature and biometric object. Permeating seemingly solid yet porous boundaries of taxonomy of non-human beings, these stories open up possibilities for reading and  perceiving animals as physical, emotional, and symbolic entities. From Hou Ching's painting depicting hunters showcasing the captured eagle as trophy, to a video by the Future Host reenacting Nüwa's creation of humans and repairment of heaven, to Joy Li putting on a fur made of interlaced silver needles to transform into a monster, to Sungsil Ryu's satirizing pet funerals and animal communication services in her fictional universe, to Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen documenting the cultivation of goldfish as object for aesthetic interest, to Zoë Marden's quasi-ecosystem intricately woven with ceramics and tubes in an aquarium, and Mui Hoi Ying's installation and performance inspired by the behavior of moths attracted to lights, each artwork leaves marks of various forms and concepts of animals in language, science, society, media, and aesthetics. And, these marks can trace back to  the mythologies and legends, traditional cultures, natural phenomenon and economic industries in the regions where the artists' respectively grew up and resided. Throughout the exhibition, appearingly unrelated stories on animals are presented here, not with the intention to follow a single traditional, man-centric linear narrative trajectory. Instead, they weave a narrative web highlighting the often overshadowed non-human characters in storytelling, allowing the audience to speculate alternative nodes in between specieses and fabulate on how a human-non-human world can be worlded.