With Ants as Prelude
- Date: April 20, 2025
- Location: UCCA Auditorium, Beijing
The parallel dialogue series "Symbiosis and Continuum", jointly initiated by UCCA Center for Contemporary Art and the Berggruen Research Center at Peking University, aims to explore the resonance and collaboration between researchers from diverse scientific disciplines, philosophical thinkers, and contemporary artists. The series engages with topics such as "altruistic mechanisms" and "self-awareness", encouraging exchanges from multiple perspectives and examining how diachronic intertextual mechanisms can be formed within authentic and continuous experiences of time.
The three conversations in this series will invite scholars from fields such as biology, medical anthropology, and science fiction writing, to engage in dialogue with artists who have experience in cross-media practices.
In the first conversation of the series, evolutionary biologist Professor ZHANF Guojie and artist LIU Shuai will engage from the dual perspectives of scientific research and artistic practice. Beginning with the life networks revealed by ant societies, they will explore the deeper relationships of multispecies symbiosis.
Drawing from his research in biodiversity genomics and evolutionary ecology, Professor Zhang will discuss how ants, through their complex social structures, modes of cooperation, and genetic adaptations, achieve both species evolution and co-shaping of environments. His reflections will offer insights into the dynamic equilibrium of life systems.
Artist Liu Shuai, through his artistic practice, will present ants as mediators between individual and collective, natural and artificial worlds. Using his unique artistic language, he brings attention to this small yet vital species, illuminating its ecological and ethical significance.
The dialogue will extend into philosophical questions hidden within life’s networks, exploring the boundaries of life, symbiosis, and perception. The conversation will be moderated by Lu Qiaoying, Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University and a 2020–2021 Berggruen Fellow.
Speakers
Zhang Guojie
Chair Professor and the founding director of the Centre for Evolutionary & Organismal Biology at Zhejiang University
Zhang Guojie’s research group specializes in biodiversity genomics and genome evolution, motivated by a fascination with the diverse array of species and their remarkable variations in morphology, physiology, and behavior. By employing interdisciplinary approaches, his research tackles fundamental questions regarding the origin of species and has revealed molecular mechanisms underlying speciation and adaptation across a wide range of animal taxa, including humans. Furthermore, his group has established ants as model systems for investigating animal social evolution.
LIU Shuai
Artist
Liu Shuai is an artist and insect researcher. His work often adopts the perspective of creatures displaced by human activity, exploring the easily overlooked glimmers and twinges between land, weather, humans, and non-human life.In recent years, his research areas have extended to the Middle East and Central Asia, focusing on the persistent damage to the ecosystem caused by secondary disasters of war such as military pollution.
Li Shuai received the UCCA & XINTIANDI RANRAN-Exploration Award, the Bio Art & Design Award, and the Prince Claus Seed Award. He was also supported by the One Way Street Foundation-Sailor Program and the Goethe-Institut.
About the Moderator
LU Qiaoying
Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University
2020-2021 Berggruen Fellow
Her research focuses primarily on the philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. Her work includes developing the theoretical foundations of the extended gene-centered approach and applying structural causal models to analyze gene causality. She has also explored topics such as units of natural selection, the revival of Lamarckism, and gene editing technology.
About the UCCA
The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art is China’s premier museum of modern and contemporary art. Committed to the belief that art can deepen lives and transcend boundaries, UCCA presents a wide range of exhibitions, public programs, and educational initiatives across four architecturally and programmatically distinct locations. Owned by a group of committed patrons, it is funded by donations, sponsorship, ticketing, and proceeds from the commercial activities of UCCA Lab. UCCA has presented more than 200 exhibitions and welcomed more than ten million visitors since its founding in Beijing in 2007 as the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art.
The UCCA is currently presenting “Anicka Yi: There Exists Another Evolution, But In This One” between March 22, 2025, and June 15, 2025, the artist’s first solo exhibition in China and her most extensive presentation to date, featuring nearly 40 works. This exhibition offers a profound entry point into Anicka Yi’s multisensory universe of biology, technology, philosophy, and art, in a bold yet nuanced reflection of the human experience against the background of systems in flux.