Silk Radiance: Liangzhu Dreamscape by Liang Shaoji

Preface

How distant are five millennia?
Measured in silk and light,
the answer gleams:
a mere 1.5 seconds to return
to the ancient state of Liangzhu.

This is an ode—
a gaze cast back
through the corridor of Chinese civilization.

Archaeologist Mu Yongkang observed:
‘Jade, silk, lacquer and porcelain are our ancestors’ four gifts to humanity, material testaments to a conceptual realm revolving around luminous softness. Emerging in prehistory (jade: 9000 years; silk: 5300 years; lacquer: 8000 years), these divergent substances share one aura: the serene glow that caresses the soul." Yet beyond this, jade and silk became the very parchment on which China's cultural consciousness was inscribed.

Here, artists converse with Liangzhu—
in silk's lexicon,
history's meditations,
poetry's syntax.
Fifteen works unravel cosmic dialogues:
nature and universe,
time and life,
being and beings,
eternity and the now...
rekindling questions:
How to weigh life's essence?
How to thread past with present?
Where lies the root of our cultural sap?

Like the silkworm's tireless thread,
Chinese civilization spins
through millennia—
unbroken,
unspooling.

That primal light of antiquity
still pierces the mists of time,
a beacon
for our onward journey.

Installation view