"Poetics of Fantasy" video art exhibition space design

The Poetics of Fantasy image-art exhibition, part of the 13th Beijing International Film Festival's Art Innovation Unit, ran from April 20 to May 15 at UCCA Lab in the 798 Art District. Initiated by Ms. Tan Zhuo and curated by Dr. Shen Qilan, the exhibition was spatially designed by KiKi Architects under Guan Jiayan, presenting moving-image works by Antoni Muntadas, Liang Shaoji, Raoul Marks, Shirazeh Houshiary, Song Dong, Ulay and Yang Fudong across twelve screening spaces and interlacing sky-bridges. Centered on the curator's premise that opening thought's boundaries through image is both visual and spiritual poetry, the design works from the visitor's route and the existing 4-to-8-meter floor heights. Unlike hermetically sealed video spaces, KiKi uses restrained, light gestures to give the twelve screening rooms independence, fluidity and communicativeness. Four larger, regular screening spaces occupy the east and west against existing walls; eight parallel, staggered screening boxes cluster around a central sky-bridge axis. These 3-to-4-meter-high rooms, ranging from 3.6 to 100 square meters, are both independent and linked. Doors, window openings, low walls and corridors, lit from one side, flow and wind, leaving room for thought to grow and echoing the plural, accessible dissemination of moving-image art. Just as film uses parallel montage to weave episodes into a unified theme, the sky-bridge lets viewers look back and gaze at the different viewing experiences offered by each box and work, adding a layer of sediment. Starting from Shirazeh Houshiary's space and ending at Muntadas's zone, the nearly 40-meter bridge is 1.5 meters wide, with gentle ramps at both ends that cut through several boxes. Through skylights in the box roofs, visitors catch halos spilling from different images, which abstractly extend works across spatial gradients. Light bands beneath the bridge blur the boxes' outlines, producing floating poetry. The 600-square-meter space remains an open, diffuse carrier that lays bare mood without interference, questioning the boundary between seen and known.