2025.8.30
In 2025, Xin Liu’s curatorial practice turned its attention to a dimension with greater depth: time. In her view, an individual’s understanding of the self is a process that is constantly redefined amidst the passage of time and the shifting landscape of social relationships and cultural contexts. This realisation has imbued her curatorial approach with a unique temporality. The exhibition is a process that unfolds over time, requiring viewers to engage with it through their own experiences of time.
This temporal curatorial consciousness manifests itself on multiple levels. In terms of the exhibition’s narrative structure, Xin Liu deliberately avoids the constraints of linear time, opting instead for a more complex organisation of time. Different works are situated within distinct temporal experiences: some point to the accumulation of memory, others engage with present-day perceptions, and still others hint at possibilities not yet realised.
These distinct temporal layers coexist within the same space, forming a multidimensional temporal field through which viewers can move freely, establishing their own connections between the different temporalities evoked by the works. These connections are not predetermined by the curator, but are continually renegotiated within the viewer’s own experience of time.
At the same time, Xin Liu focuses on the body’s experience of time. Bodily perception is both continuous and cumulative; a detail perceived at a given moment may continue to resonate in the viewer’s consciousness even after they have moved on to the next work, generating new meanings upon encountering subsequent pieces. This continuity of perception lends her curatorial practice a unique temporal depth. The exhibition spaces she constructs encourage the viewer to slow down, allowing perceptions to ferment gradually over time, so that meaning takes shape gradually through delay and resonance.
On a deeper level, Xin Liu’s exploration of temporality in curating ultimately points to fundamental questions regarding self-understanding. Through their encounters with the works, the space and time itself, viewers are constantly questioned, unsettled and reorganised. The significance of the exhibition therefore lies not only in the content conveyed by the works themselves, but also in the subtle shifts in self-awareness that viewers experience as time flows.
