Finally, I am Beyond That House

Artist: Hu Jieming, Hu Weiyi

Curator: Rachel Wang

Artistic Director: Jin Yuanyuan

Psychology Consultant: Lyu Zhouda

E.SCAPE Art Space presents the second joint father-and-son exhibition by artists Hu Jieming and Hu Weiyi, following their first collaboration in 2018: Finally, I Am Beyond That House, curated by Wang Liqiu. The exhibition unfolds along the spiritual thread of the annual theme — "[JIA]_家" — conceived by Artistic Director Jin Yuanyuan.

Text by Rachel Wang

As curator, I am at once a member of this family and the weaver of this exhibition's narrative. It is precisely within this intimacy — at once near and far — that I have been able to discern the strikingly different paths by which two generations of artists find their way back to "home."

This century-old shikumen house on Wukang Road has, since the last century, served as a family dwelling bearing the living traces of multiple generations. It is now a multicultural experimental art space. Artist Hu Jieming spent a month in residence here, observing objects and time through the eyes of a "guest": photography, moving image, and installation became his media for bridging the century-old space with present-day experience, situating individual existence within the flow of time.

In counterpoint, Hu Weiyi draws "home" toward a spiritual dimension. By weaving the everyday life of his own family into his narrative, the artist probes the relationship between absence and presence, past and present, distilling them into a secret passage toward self-reflection. When "home" in its physical sense becomes a place of confinement, where does the spirit find its dwelling?

The two artists follow fundamentally different creative paths: one takes matter as his field, the other takes the spirit as his route. "Home" is no longer a single physical address — it is a fold in time and memory, something that can be mended, recalled, and reimagined anew. Two seemingly divergent threads ultimately converge beneath the eaves of this century-old house.