LAB 2025 Curatorial Statement

Why Metamorphoses? Whether drawn from the imaginary transformation into a butterfly—a meditation on the “becoming of beings”—in the Zhuangzi or inspired by the multifaceted potential embedded in the Western word “metamorphoses” per se, this idea reveals humanity as a dynamic existence endowed with sentience, imagination, and practical agency. Together, they point toward infinite possibilities in the sense of Creative Evolution. As body and consciousness continue to flow and persist within ever-renewing dimensions of temporal, spatial, technological, and aesthetic reality, how can we creatively illuminate and connect our culturally transformed bodies? How may we actively cultivate a future where profound interiority and patterned exteriority coexist in harmony? Between encoding and decoding, how do we enrich and achieve commensurability across matters, symbols, media, and languages—while still honoring the irreducible inner motion of each individual life? 

As one response to these questions, “Metamorphoses” suggests an evolutionary perspective on the world and the self. In practical terms, it represents an approach that renews and integrates all embodied, cultural, and technological experiences rooted in the transformation of life. It is an embrace rather than an escape; a gaining, not a losing. 

On the threshold of autumn turning to winter, in keeping with Lingnan University’s commitment to liberal arts education and social engagement, we draw inspiration from the theme of “Metamorphoses” to launch the latest edition of Lingnan Arts Biennial, a tradition since 2021. This year’s Biennial brings together artists and performing groups from across Hong Kong, while creatively integrating the University’s own practice in humanities, sciences, and technology. Through a fusion of dance, music, opera, symposium, and digital arts presented in multiple media, the campus and the community will converge into a mutually permeable, multi-dimensional space. The Biennale aims to expand the interactive realm between embodied sentience and diverse culture, to reveal humanity’s capability of synesthesia rooted in our empathy with all living things, and to explore future landscapes and blueprints of life in a time of transformation.

物化何爲？無論是語出《莊子》化蝶玄想的「物化」之思，還是源自西文「Metamorphoses」一詞所承載的多元潛力，這一命題均揭示出人作爲一種富於情識、想象與實踐力量的動態存在，以及其在創造進化論（Creative Evolution）意義上的無限可能。當身體與意識在不斷更新的時空、技術與美學現實中流變與存持，我們如何創造性地彰顯與聯結彼此被「文」所「化」的身體，又如何身體力行地創造出迎向未來世代的「情深而文明」之境？在編碼與解碼之間，我們如何豐富並實現跨越於質料、符號、媒介和語言的可通約性，同時真正發現每具個體生命不可化約的運動的內核？

作爲對上述問題的一種回答，「物化/Metamorphoses」意味著一種關於世界與自身的演化視角。在實踐的意義上，它標誌著對一切基於生命變化的具身、文化乃至技術經驗的更新與融合取向。它是一種擁抱，而非逃離；一種獲得，而非失去。

值此秋冬易氣之際，秉承嶺南大學博雅教育之初衷及服務社會之理念，我們以上述「物化/Metamorphoses」主題爲靈感，再度啟動本校始於2021年的藝術雙年展系列活動。此次雙年展薈集本港社會各界演藝與文化團體，同時創造性融入本校人文與科技實踐，通過融合舞蹈、音樂、戲曲、講談及數碼藝術等多種媒介形式，將校園與社會有機聯結爲彼此滲透的多維空間。雙年展旨在拓展具身情識與多元文化的互動之域，呈現人作爲類萬物之情的有情者的通感本質，探索變化之際的未來風景與生命藍圖。
 

LAB 2025 Working Group