Oracle of Excursion
"Oracle of Excursion" — Into the Shadows of Myth, Listening to the Voice of the Land
"Qi Xie is the record of the strange and the uncanny." — Zhuangzi
In an era saturated with images, can we still hear the land’s quiet murmur?
In Qi Xie Shadow Chronicles, photographer Chen Jiayi opens a speculative dialogue with the long-lost ancient text Qi Xie, constructing a mythic journey that blends photography, text, and installation into a multisensory encounter. Wuxiang Journey serves as the entry point to this visual and conceptual odyssey.
At the core of the exhibition is a fictional ancient travelogue: a scholar, guided by a dream, discovers a surviving fragment of Qi Xie, and begins a deep descent into illusion and wonder. Viewers are invited to follow this imagined path — stepping into an “other realm” conjured by photographic works and immersive installations: swirling mists over mountain ranges, sentient vegetation, and golden-eyed beasts emerge not as mythological reproductions, but as echoes of a primal artistic urge — when nature and spirit were still one.
This journey does not aim to retell myths, but to evoke how myth speaks — through land, through body, through image. As philosopher Friedrich Schelling wrote, “Nature is spirit slumbering; spirit is nature awakened.” In Oracle of Excursion, photography is not simply an act of seeing, but one of listening — of attunement. The photographer does not assert control, but becomes a conduit, coexisting with the installations to awaken ancient, unrealized echoes — those that feel truer than reality itself.
The exhibition unfolds across three rooms. The first introduces the imagined travelogue, setting the mythopoetic tone. The second presents static yet suggestive photographic compositions — images where divine traces shimmer. The third space interweaves installation and moving image, creating a ritual-like viewing experience, where the audience is not just seeing, but being drawn in — summoned, absorbed, transformed.
This is not a documentary on folklore or rural nostalgia, but a symbolic invocation — an archetypal search for the hidden spirit of the land. Through the fractured structures of the photographic medium, through the reflection and concealment within the installations, the viewer is invited to reconsider: What is the ancient voice of the image? What is the myth that has not appeared, yet never truly disappeared?
Oracle of Excursion is both a return and a crossing — a passage from sign to symbol, from vision to immersion. Like Qi Xie in Zhuangzi’s dreamscape, it arises from a distant imaginary, yet pulses within our shared cultural memory.
「無相游」
《無相游》：沉入神話之影，傾聽土地之語
「齊諧者，志怪者也。」 —— 莊子
在這個影像氤氳的時代，我們是否還聽得見土地發出的低語？創作者陳嘉屹，以《齊諧影志》為引，與消失的古籍《齊諧》隔空對話，在圖像、文字與裝置之間構築了一場通感的神話旅行。展覽《無相游》，正是這場旅程的具象入口。
展覽以一篇虛構的古代遊記作為主線——書生因夢中啓示而得《齊諧》殘卷，自此沈迷其中、出遊幻境。觀者循著遊記所繪的路徑，如踏入一場由影像與裝置締造的「異域」：山氣巃嵷、草木神形、金眸異獸……作品並非對神話形象的復述，而是對那種「自然與精神未分裂」的原始藝術衝動的回應。
這一切並非為了講述一個神話，而是試圖喚起神話如何借由土地與身體言說——正如哲學家謝林所言，「自然是沉睡的精神，精神是觉醒的自然」。在《無相游》中，攝影不僅是觀看之術，更是「諦聽」之術：攝影者並非意志的主宰，而是與裝置共生的中介，借光影喚醒那「未曾發生卻更真實」的古老回音。
展覽空間由三間房屋組成：入口處的「遊記」設定如引子，奠定了整個展覽的神話氣場；第二間房呈現的是凝固的影像意象，隱現神跡；第三间则结合影像，以裝置與動態影像交織，喚起一種巫覡般的觀看儀式——觀者非僅「觀看」，而彷彿被召喚、被捲入、被吸納。
這不是一次對民俗或鄉土的寫實記錄，而是一場對「原型」的召喚，對土地深處隱匿精神的追索。在影像的「撕裂結構」中，在裝置的反射與遮蔽之間，觀者將被邀請重新感知：什麼是影像的古音？什麼是尚未顯現、卻從未消逝的神話？
《無相游》是一次回望與越界，一次從表意進入象徵，從觀看走向沉潛的旅程。如同莊子筆下的「齊諧」，它來自遙遠的夢境，卻也深植於我們共同的文化基因之中。