Artist's show sheds light on interlinks of history and ecology, men and living things

Liu Yujia's current solo exhibition, A Darkness Shimmering in the Light, in Beijing's 798 art zone, is one of the coolest destination for people in the summer heat that has engulfed the capital for weeks.

At the center of the show, curated by Mia Yu and held at Tang Contemporary Art until July 30, is two adjacent display screens of several meters high on which two of her latest video works are being shown.

The two works were filmed during her four journeys to the Changbai Mountain and the upper reaches of Songhua River, in the last two years. The forests and river streams are the gateway for the audience to enter the past and back the present, being captured by the light that penetrates through the trees and onto all the living things on Earth.

In a clear, poetic manner, the works explore the relations between nature and human civilization, science and mythology, technology and ecology. Liu's video works fascinate the viewers with a blurring boundary between the real and the unreal, incorporating the methods of documentary, ethnography, fairly tales and travelogue.