Pills Architects was invited to design the space for "Wu Jian'an: The Huge Sand Dunes are the Bed of the Sea," a large-scale solo exhibition held at the Silk Road International Art Exchange Center in September 2021.

Wu Jian'an is an internationally renowned contemporary Chinese artist. He synthesizes various materials, languages, and media to reconstruct a visual link between contemporary art and ancient culture, giving a new perspective to ancient myths, totems, folk crafts, tales, and traditional writing. The exhibition presents Wu Jian'an's large-scale installations, showing the peaks of his creations in recent years and systematically sorting out the creative lineage.

We create a surreal field in the exhibition hall of more than 1,000 square meters, with a five-meter high dune, a black ocean, an endless mirror, and the rising and setting sun. The exhibition space allows viewers to meditate in the silent dunes, get lost in the forest of reflections, perceive the passage of time amid the "changing sun and moon," and gaze at the illusion and reflection of light and shadow in the huge mirror.

Desert, mirrors (including water), and light are the keys to creating a dreamland. The exhibition space is divided into zones by huge ground constructions instead of partitions. After many experiments, the exhibition team eventually used foam board as the base. The structure maintains the sand textures of various granularities on different layers, forming a desert's durable and rippled surface.

We conceal the structural pillars with mirrors and place the work "Daydream Forest Series" between parallel mirrors so that the limited work extends infinitely in the space. The physical and reflective images of the work "The Heaven of Nine Levels" become the main body of the dreamland. At the end of the dune, the work "Plain Faces" is suspended above a black ink pool, forming a mirror image with the tranquil water.

The two searchlights on the site's diagonal corners constitute the exhibition's main light source, becoming an artificial "sun" that rises in the east and sets in the west. The moving figures, the rippling sand, the changing light, the fictitious reflections, the space, and the works together, layer by layer, draw the viewers into the artist's mysterious narrative.

Walking, moving, and perceiving are core to the exhibition experience, and the whole viewing process is like a mystic tour of an ancient or a science-fictional world. The entire exhibition hall is covered by sand, and we constructed a huge dune with a diameter of 17 meters in the center.

Entering the space, one first encounters the artist's signature piece, "The Heaven of Nine Levels," a huge mirror that creates an alternative world. Following the lead of the light, one can wander on the sandy ridges of the "Eternal Realm." The changing light spills from above, rendering the boundaries while signaling the "Black Sea" entrance. Bypassing the screen, "Plain Faces," a giant matrix of nearly four hundred individual works suspend on the tranquil black water surface.

The footprints in the long stretches of sand are a testament to the viewers' dialogue with the world. As the feet sink deeper into the sand, the burning light shines across the dune, and the animal silhouettes of the piece "Omen" appear on the inked walls. These animals foreshadow certain mysterious messages obtained by peeking into the future.

Looking out from the cave, a "black ocean" stretches in the middle of the sand with boundless and open water. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west in front of the viewers.

At the end of the dream, the secret "Mirror Jungle" lies behind the giant wall, a space enclosed by two parallel mirrors. The "Daydream Forest Series" work casts glittering light spots on the surrounding sand.

The core of Wu's artistic discernment and visual creation is to express the eternal part of human civilization and history through situations that seem distant from today's mundane life. In this exhibition, the body of works comprises more than 300 individual pieces. It is like the ancestral mantle and wisdom collection arranged in a matrix of time and space. Between truth and myth, image and illusion, there lies the sea, lies the dune.