Current Exhibition
Tianjiao Wang, A Prolonged Honoring
February 15–March 8, 2025
Gallery hours
Saturday, February 15, 11am-3pm
Saturday, February 22, 11am-3pm
Saturday, March 1, 11am-3pm
Friday, March 7, 6–9pm – Artist’s Reception
Saturday, March 8, 11am-3pm – Last Look
About the Artist
Tianjiao Wang works with photography, film, video, and installations to acknowledge the presence of things. She believes that to see something is to study it, develop an affinity for it, and attempt to understand it. Through photographing and filming, she anticipates drawing others closer while keeping them perpetually within the realm of the other, without crossing boundaries, encroaching, or fusing.
Wang earned her MFA from the University of Chicago in 2024 and was a resident artist at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in 2023, as well as at Ragdale in 2025. She has received various forms of support, including the University of Chicago Scholarship and the Fire Escape Films Independent Project Grant. Her 16mm film WILLIAMBABE was selected for the 2024 Light Matter Film Festival in Alfred, NY. In 2022, she self-published an artist photobook titled Yanqing, through the Veil. Wang was also selected for a Teaching Fellowship at the University of Chicago for the 2024–2025 academic year.
Artist’s Statement
Yanqing, through the Veil by Tianjiao Wang is a series of photographs made through 2021-2022 that reflects the status behind the rapid development of the rural areas in China. With the loosening of the household registration system starting in 2010, the younger generations choose to go to schools and work in more resourceful cities where there are more resources.
Wang’s observations included the age gap in the rural population. These visual articulations convey a strong sense of emptiness that was apparent in each visit. Today’s Chinese villages still retain respect and dependence on the soil as well as a sense of collectiveness. All changes are relevant to them, but their lives are still embroiled in trivial matters. The empty, aging, abandoned, and uncertain rural status quo is the inevitable result of the rapid development of human civilization; however, no matter how much progress has taken place, the original form of the community remains unchanged. People eat together, work together, and enjoy entertainment together. They still function within the context of the collective.
The work is composed with portraits of the villagers and the environment in which they live. Over the past year, seasons have cycled, modern construction has been carried out, all the while the villagers are disappearing. Wang witnessed that society is progressing and people in rural areas have a better life. But as we blindly moved forward quickly, ignoring that the land was our original root, where is the future of these villages? This question has echoed in Wang’s mind. As an outsider of the village, Wang realized that she cannot tell stories on behalf of the people there. All she could do is to form a narrative of the experience through photographs within the past visits. She is willing to keep making observations and exploring these villages. It is certain that she felt disappointed about things that disappeared. People’s gratitude for their current lives and their migration toward more resourceful places changed the essence of their lives. While feeling disappointed, seeing people have a persistent yearning toward life is inspiring her.
The exhibition A Prolonged Honoring offers a spatial presentation of Wang’s Yanqing, through the Veil (2021–2022). Distinct from the editing and layout of the artist book completed in 2022, this exhibition extracts the temporal arc of Wang’s return to Yanqing. The narrative transitions from depictions of landscapes to intimate portrayals of local residents, reflecting a gradual shift in focus. The selected static images incorporate multiple points of attention, extending a linear viewing trajectory that invites viewers to form layered impressions within a single moment.