This installation recontextualizes six key scenes from the video work Ceramic Geography: Macau’s beginnings as a trade port; silver mining in Potosí; the spread of tea culture to the West; the plunder of merchant vessels by the Dutch; the European discovery of the secret techniques behind Chinese porcelain manufacture, abetted by missionaries’ meddling and alchemist’s experiments; and finally a record-breaking auction of shipwrecked pottery held in the Netherlands in the 1980s, which was marketed as a sale of Chinese porcelain—delivered 400 years late. Flowing narrative projections contrast static matter, both housed within monument-like kilns. The past is condensed into physical form, allowing viewers to reach out towards the specters of history that cling to matter.

The installation Shipwrecked Porcelain is composed of six parts, connecting several key moments in the history of maritime trade: the transmission of tea culture and Yixing zisha (purple clay) teapots to the West, spurring a consumer revolution driven by demand for foreign goods; the opening of Macau to foreign trade, which according to local folklore saw the city’s streets paved with shattered ballast stones; the deluge of Potosí silver that flowed from South America to Asia, where it became the lifeblood of commerce; and the seizure of Portuguese boats called carracks by the Dutch, leading to the use of the term “Kraak ware” to describe the blue and white porcelain carried onboard. Deeper back in time, the Southern Song dynasty shipwreck known as Nanhai I silently encapsulates the prosperity of the Maritime Silk Road. Zhou Xiaohu salvages objects that were once passively pulled into power struggles, and one by one transforms previously hidden ceramics into history’s protagonists. In A Piece of Sea – Shipwrecked Porcelain, located in the outer gallery, Zhou also reenacts the excavation of the Nanhai I.

With the opening up of transoceanic trade routes in the seventeenth century, late Ming and early Qing court cartographers broke away from the traditional cosmological concept of “Round Heaven and Square Earth.” They created maps incorporating aspects of modern geography and a global perspective, decorating them with depictions of “strange” creatures inspired by European natural science. Taking this historical transformation as a backdrop, Zhou Xiaohu references the Kunyu Quantu, a map created by Ferdinand Verbiest (a European Jesuit who served at the Qing court). Utilizing jiaoni (literally “twisting clay”), an agateware technique used to make Yixing zisha teapots, he fired a large number of ceramic sculptures of mythical beasts, as well as porcelain shards representing maritime wreckage. The artist juxtaposes these two groups of objects—which emerge from the interplay between legend and reality—and suspends them in a vortex-like tableaux reenacting a hidden story about exploration and value.

Exuding a synthetic fragrance, this ceramic installation resembles a sperm whale and has the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, a Ming dynasty world map, engraved upon its surface. Its body brings together two sides of the Age of Exploration: trade and plunder. During the Ming Dynasty, the Portuguese traded ambergris—a substance produced by sperm whales—to pry open the door to Macau and gain access to Chinese porcelain. Later, from the eighteenth century onward, whaling fleets from a number of nations slaughtered countless whales to obtain raw materials. To pass time, sailors would carve nautical imagery onto whale bones, creating an artform called “scrimshaw.” Here, ambergris, ceramics, a whale’s physical form, and a global nautical chart are interwoven, forming different layers of a material epic about desire.

Whereas Zhou Xiaohu’s works downstairs investigate how objects shape history, here Zhang Yibei approaches the agency of matter from a perspective that positions timeless cycles within the present moment. The installation Murmurs of Water and Warblings of Birds, which lends its title to her section of the exhibition, is inspired by a curious yet commonplace contemporary structure: that of a cell phone tower disguised as a tree. By adopting this form as the installation’s central element, the artist raises questions about the ostensible divide between the natural and the artificial, as well as how wireless electronic networks echo forms of plant communication.

Though the work’s title evokes a natural soundscape, it is actually silent—Zhang conceives of sound as a metaphor here, pointing to how the clamor of industrial society drowns out the natural world, including the “conversations” that occur between supposedly inanimate objects, beyond the reach of unaided human perception. While preparing this piece, the artist was inspired by phenology, the study of cycles in nature. Though seasons and climate are key factors in determining when flowers bloom or animals migrate, more broadly speaking the timing of these events is shaped by multi-layered networks connecting environments and living things. As viewers wander through the installation, encountering the horizontally arranged tree-tower along with hanging depictions of seeds and internal organs rendered in marble, metal, and other materials, they are encouraged to understand themselves as “sensors.” If we remain open to all signals, what might we hear? To adopt a framework proposed by Donna Haraway, how might we see ourselves as part of a knotted-together network of “sympoiesis” (making-with) that includes organisms, materials, emotions, and that which exists yet remains unknowable?

Recipes for Breathing was previously shown at Zhang Yibei’s 2024 solo exhibition “Please No Helmet,” which explored the concept of defense mechanisms. The piece resembles a massive shell yet also incorporates industrially-manufactured items like hinges and a lock, drawing attention to how non-human entities protect themselves. The form of the shell implies an aquatic origin, in this context resonating with Zhou Xiaohu’s works examining maritime artifacts.