Yi Space is proud to present *Interwoven Visions: The Symbiosis of Body, Nature, and Myth*, the first institutional solo exhibition in China by the renowned artist Kiki Smith. Opening on March 21, 2025, the exhibition brings together 22 works created over the past two decades, spanning tapestries, sculptures, and works on paper. Occupying the entirety of the gallery spaces, the show offers a multi-dimensional exploration of the artist's cultural narratives and mystical inquiries into the body, the human condition, and the natural world.

Guided by the concept of "interweaving," the exhibition reveals how Smith fosters a cross-species dialogue through material transformation: the textures of the body become the folds of the land, mythological symbols transform into the roots of nature, and the re-enchantment of craft metaphorically represents the eternal cycle of life and decay. Viewers are invited to navigate the intricate folds connecting death, rebirth, selfhood, and the ecosystem, prompting a re-examination of the ethics of symbiosis.

Since the early 1980s, Kiki Smith has been renowned for her interdisciplinary practice, which seamlessly integrates craft-intensive processes with an allegorical visual language. Her early works deconstructed the body from a subversive perspective, focusing on bodily fluids, reproductive functions, and processes of decay. She later turned to a systematic study of the female form, creating life-sized sculptures using skin-like materials such as wax, latex, and hair, probing the materiality and politics of the body. Over the past two decades, her focus has expanded from the human body and the cycle of life to the indivisibility of humanity and nature, incorporating elements from ancient myths and folklore. Mystical creatures, nude imagery, ritual objects, cosmic phenomena, and expressions of intertwined sorrow and joy form a complex web of intertextuality within her work.

The exhibition features four large-scale jacquard tapestries that reimagine ecological themes through a feminist lens, depicting surreal scenes of coexistence between humans and animals. These works draw inspiration from the grand narrative tradition of the medieval French *Apocalypse Tapestry* and the weaving aesthetics of the hippie movement. Kiki Smith created the original designs through hand-made collage and oversaw the entire high-precision loom-weaving process, preserving the fabric's delicate texture and deep color layers. Abstract borders employ horizontal bands of color to evoke geological strata, landscapes, and the vertical structure of the sky. In *Underground* (2012), for instance, a male figure is intertwined with tree roots, confronting the earth's core.

The bronze sculpture *Winter* (2021) draws upon the myth of Capricorn, creating a hybrid sea creature that is half-goat, half-fish. Its surface texture—scales coexisting with feathers—and its ambiguous posture, simultaneously inviting and resisting, reflect the contradictory and hybrid nature of life. The suspended aluminum sculpture *Spiral Nebula* (2017) uses its shimmering metallic surface to blur the boundary between celestial bodies and cells, challenging viewers' conventional perceptions of space and life. Four wall-mounted sculptures (2011-2019) deconstruct the female form into abstract symbols, achieving a topological symbiosis with cosmic nebulae or arboreal forms.

The exhibition also presents eight works on Nepalese paper, whose translucent quality evokes fragile skin, weathered stone pages, or withered vegetation. Using materials such as ink, glitter, wax crayon, and gold leaf, Smith depicts imagery of young girls, deer, and piles of organic matter, occasionally overlaying constellations or vascular networks to construct vessels of memory shaped by time's erosion. Four collaged copperplate etchings create eerie nocturnal scenes—glowing trees stand in a dark void, traversed by ray-like spectral lines.

Smith's practice challenges the traditional art historical separation of body, nature, and myth, reframing the body as a political space, a vessel for ecological cycles, and a container for collective memory. Through her cross-media approach, she deconstructs binary frameworks. Her fusion of medieval craft techniques with feminist perspectives not only offers a poetic ecological critique to re-examine biopolitics but also re-enchants myth as a tool for confronting human vulnerability and interdependence. This exhibition centers on the poetic depth of myth and the critical power of narrative, presenting the diversity of Smith's oeuvre through multiple lenses and showcasing her astute and delicate exploration of the real world.