Matriarchal Myth: When Myth is Written by Women
Writer: 雷妮 Orianna
Date: 02/02/2026
Keywords: female subjectivity / recontextualization / posthumanism
诗歌作为武器，影像变成眼睛，神话被交由女性之手书写。传说中在密林中绑架孩子的鬼魅，勾起人们内心从稚嫩孩童起对家庭和社会的未知恐惧；出生与死亡是生物学上的名词，生命本能的自我蜕变，却要求我们既是胎儿又是助产士，无数次“死去”，然后 再“重生”；神话并非只是过去的故事，而是凝视当下的视角，允许我们重新梳理经验，构筑起支持女性主体性的新思考方式。
Monoliths, silken webs, Barbies, and ghosts... Matriarchal Myth: A Group Exhibition of Women Artists feels like the excavation of a grotesque and wondrous cavern. Within this space, characters—both real and fictional—wander and chant like specters, asserting their presence with quiet force. The meanings carried by these symbols are inextricably linked to female identity, socio-cultural narratives, and systems of belief.
Poetry serves as a weapon; the lens becomes an eye; and the pen of mythology is returned to the hands of women.
The ghosts of folklore who kidnap children in dense forests evoke a primal, subterranean fear of the unknown within family and society. Birth and death are biological terms, yet the instinctual metamorphosis of life demands that we act as both fetus and midwife—"dying" and being "reborn" countless times. Myth is not merely a story of the past; it is a lens through which we gaze at the present, allowing us to reorganize experience and construct new frameworks of thought that support female subjectivity.
展览现场 Exhibition View
2025 年 11 月 26 日至 12 月 3 日，《母系神话：女性艺术家影像群展》由伦敦策展团体 Which Witch Collective 策划和发起，在上海 Aolab 物集实验画廊对公众开放。展览摒弃了传统的“白盒子”(White Cube)陈展范式 —— 即使画廊空间本身提供了纯粹审美凝视的功能，这个场域纯白、中立、无干扰，小巧的面积，甚至带来一定的亲密和肃穆的混合感受——策展人李昕昕有意挑战固有的范式，将展览视为一个具有起承转合叙事逻辑的“文本”，引导观众经历特 定的情感旅程，就像一个洞穴，而这场洞穴之旅的终点，指向的是一种以女性经验为核心的新叙事: “母系神话”(Matriarchal Myth)。
From November 26 to December 3, 2025, Matriarchal Myth—curated and launched by the London-based Which Witch Collective—opened to the public at Aolab Gallery in Shanghai. The exhibition discards the traditional "White Cube" paradigm. Although the gallery space offers a pure aesthetic gaze—white, neutral, and undisturbed—its compact scale creates a hybrid atmosphere of intimacy and solemnity. Curator Li Xinxin intentionally challenges inherent paradigms, treating the exhibition as a "text" with its own narrative logic of introduction, transition, and resolution. Visitors are guided through a specific emotional journey, akin to traversing a cave. The destination of this subterranean voyage points toward a new narrative centered on female experience: the "Matriarchal Myth."
展览现场 Exhibition View
正如策展人李昕昕在策展文本中所写，“母系神话”的概念需基于一个前提：“神话并非静态的文化遗产，而是一种不断生成、持续演化的语言。” 借此，神话不仅存在于过去，更通往未来。宗教与性别研究学者辛西娅·埃勒(Cynthia Eller)在著作《史前母权制神话：为什么虚构的过去不会给女性未来》(The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future)提出对史前母系乌托邦(如希腊克里特岛上米诺斯文明是典型的母系文明)的质疑，认为这种史前母系神话始终依赖二元论的性别刻板印象，并忽视了真实的权力斗争，她写道，“将女性赋予一个象征性、永恒和原型化的身份，而不是让她们自由地塑造适合自己性格、技能、偏好、道德和政治承诺的身份。”
展览的策展叙事试图从根本层面上重组这种关于身体、身份与自然的想象方式，使一种真正思考女性主体性的力量得以显现。正如 Which Witch Collective 指向的“女巫”，再直白不过，借用了历史上因拒绝“控制”而遭受暴力迫害的女性形象 —— 这一自我宣言，在展览上以 Tanja Krebs 的作品《她穿石而语》(She, Who Speaks Through Stone，2025)悬浮式地陈展予以宣告，天花板直抵地面的白纱帷幕，书写着诗歌：“她被冠以许多名字，有些卑污，有些敬畏，但多数有毁灭之力。有人会唤她——女巫。”
As Li Xinxin notes in the curatorial statement, the concept of "Matriarchal Myth" rests on a single premise: "Myth is not a static cultural heritage, but a language in a state of constant becoming and evolution." Through this lens, myth exists not just in the past, but as a bridge to the future. Religious and gender scholar Cynthia Eller, in her work The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future, questions the notion of prehistoric matriarchal utopias (such as the Minoan civilization on Crete). Eller argues that these myths often rely on binary gender stereotypes and ignore real power struggles. She writes of the danger in "consignment of women to a symbolic, eternal, and archetypal identity, rather than allowing them the freedom to forge identities suited to their own temperaments, skills, preferences, morals, and political commitments."
The exhibition's narrative seeks to fundamentally reorganize how we imagine the body, identity, and nature, allowing a power that truly reflects female subjectivity to emerge. The "Witch" in Which Witch Collective is a direct reference to the historical figure of the woman persecuted for refusing "control." This declaration is personified in Tanja Krebs’ work, She, Who Speaks Through Stone (2025). In a suspended installation, a white gauze curtain drops from ceiling to floor, inscribed with poetry: "Many names they gave her, some foul, others in awe, and most distructive. Some might call her witch."
Tanja Krebs，她穿⽯⽽语 ，摄影, 2025
Tanja Krebs, Who Speaks Through Stone，Photography, 2025
Tanja Krebs, Who Speaks Through Stone，Photography, 2025
展览汇聚了九位来自不同文化背景的女性艺术家，她们以摄影和动态影像为媒介，使神话在重访与再造之间重新书写。首先映入眼帘的，是艺术家梁淑焱 Shuyan Liang 的摄影装置作品《直至走入森林深处》(The Day I Walked Deep into the Forest，2025)，这件由黑白影像、拼贴与石版画所组成的作品似是一种对于远古神话的现代回响。艺术家将被视作伦敦城市灵魂的“伦敦之石”(The London Stone)的传说重新构想，物质性的“石头”作为意象，被放置在精神性的“森林” —— 后者象征着自然， 更是通往神话时空的门户。
The exhibition brings together nine women artists from diverse cultural backgrounds. Using photography and moving images as their media, they rewrite myth in the space between visitation and reinvention. The journey begins with Shuyan Liang’s photographic installation, The Day I Walked Deep into the Forest
(2025). Composed of black-and-white imagery, collage, and lithography, the work acts as a modern echo of ancient lore. The artist reimagines the legend of the "London Stone"—the purported soul of the city— recontextualizing the material "stone" within a spiritual "forest," the latter serving as a portal to mythical time and space.
梁淑焱 Shuyan Liang，直⾄⾛⼊森林深处，摄影装置，⽯版印刷及艺术微喷于 Somerset Velvet 艺术纸上，2025
Shuyan Liang，The Day I Walked Deep into the Forest，Photographic installation, lithography, and giclée print on Somerset Velvet fine art paper，2025
Shuyan Liang，The Day I Walked Deep into the Forest，Photographic installation, lithography, and giclée print on Somerset Velvet fine art paper，2025
在媒介与象征之间，重构“神话”概念。这种“再语境化”(Recontextualization)的方法论从第一件作品便宣告着两位策展人贯穿整个展览的叙事框架。随着展览动线，我们的视线进入肯尼亚艺术家 Khaliyesa Barbara Minishi 的影像作品《七次呼吸：土壤、影子与肌肤的季节》(Seven Breaths in the Season of Soil, Shadow & Skin, 2025)。Khaliyesa Minishi 成长于肯尼亚城市内罗毕，在纽约从事时尚摄影工作后，将实践扩展至电影美术、声音实验与多媒体艺术，其当前的创作以“魅化” (Enchatment)为核心，将灵性、生态与神话诗学结合为持续十年的多学科实践。《七次呼吸：土壤、影子与肌肤的季节》“继承”了艺术家标志性的语言，介乎于时尚摄影和纪实摄影之间，呈现一位疲惫不堪的“长女”(Owefwe，意为属于我们)在自然、灵性、宗教、母系血缘、内在疗愈中的旅程。
而后下一个影像作品，艺术家王沛然 Peiran Wang 的《雪盲》，则从更当代的视角解构“神话”概念， 这是一个典型的超越人类中心的后人类主义(Posthumanism)作品：悬浮在宇宙中的 AI 系统，通过分析人类头发、香烟卡、游乐园等图像素材，最终质疑，“在普遍的父权社会中，理想的中立状态是否真实存在?” 何为生命？何为主体？何为自然与文化？两件影像作品，用两个维度的视角回应同个议题——于我们，这似乎成为了理解后续摄影作品的“线索”。
This methodology of "recontextualization"—bridging medium and symbol—is established from the very first piece. Following the exhibition route, we encounter Kenyan artist Khaliyesa Barbara Minishi’s film, Seven Breaths in the Season of Soil, Shadow & Skin (2025). Having moved from Nairobi to New York to work in fashion photography, Minishi expanded her practice into film production, sound experiments, and multimedia art. Her current work centers on "Enchantment," blending spirituality, ecology, and mythic poetics. This film "inherits" her signature aesthetic—straddling the line between fashion and documentary—to depict the journey of a weary "eldest daughter" (Owefwe) through nature, spirituality, and matrilineal healing.
In contrast, Peiran Wang’s Snow Blindness deconstructs myth from a contemporary, post-humanist perspective. An AI system suspended in the cosmos analyzes fragments of human existence—hair, cigarette cards, amusement parks—ultimately asking: "In a pervasive patriarchy, does an ideal state of neutrality truly exist?" What is life? What is the subject? What is the divide between nature and culture? These two video works provide dual perspectives on the same issue, serving as "clues" for interpreting the photography that follows.
王沛然 Peiran Wang，雪盲，单频道影像（Super 8 胶⽚转 2K、AI ⽣成序列），彩⾊，声⾳，19'24''，2025
Peiran Wang，Snow Blindness，Single-channel video (Super 8 to 2K transfer, AI-generated sequences), color, sound，19'24''，2025
Peiran Wang，Snow Blindness，Single-channel video (Super 8 to 2K transfer, AI-generated sequences), color, sound，19'24''，2025
我们看到艺术家 Giorgia Lisi 的《黑暗中我能看见你》(In the darkness I can see you)，在一系列黑白影像中，意大利南部民间传说中栖息于黑暗的恐怖幽灵“Lu Mamau”，再重新结构的语境中，指向稚嫩孩童对家庭的恐吓，社会的未知的内在恐惧；Virginia Lupu 的《廷廷廷(仪式之声)》(Tin Tin Tin)揭示巫术在当代作为边缘群体(罗马尼亚女巫 Mihaela Mincă 及其家族)的生存与文化赋权方式。
In Giorgia Lisi’s In the darkness I can see you, a series of black-and-white images recontextualize "Lu Mamau"—a terrifying specter from Southern Italian folklore. Here, the ghost represents the internal fears of childhood and the unknown anxieties of society. Meanwhile, Virginia Lupu’s Tin Tin Tin (The Sound of Ritual) reveals witchcraft as a contemporary tool for survival and cultural empowerment for marginalized groups, specifically the Romanian witch Mihaela Mincă and her family.
Giorgia Lisi，黑暗中我能看见你，摄影，2025
Giorgia Lisi，In the darkness I can see you，Photography，2025
Giorgia Lisi，In the darkness I can see you，Photography，2025
中国人从先祖起信仰万物皆有灵，艺术家朱伊茗 Yiming Zhu 借用“蚕”，一个蜕变与重生，和中国古老的生命与轮回，深深契合的动物意象，探索人类与非人类物质之间存在的超越性联系，构成摄影系列《蜕变·⻆宿星 · 红丝袋》(Metamorphosis · JiaoXiu Star · Red Silk Bag)。李语辰 Yuchen Li 的《星，星，星》(Star, Star, Star)，则指向代际传递的情感，艺术家逝去的外祖母化为“星辰” 穿越时光，以其光芒照亮为后人前路，而在凯尔特神话中，星星也被视为“灵魂之门”，逝者通过那扇门继续守望仍在世上的人。
Drawing on the ancestral Chinese belief in animism, Yiming Zhu uses the "silkworm"—a symbol of metamorphosis and rebirth deeply rooted in ancient Chinese cycles of life—to explore the transcendent connection between human and non-human matter in her series Metamorphosis · JiaoXiu Star · Red Silk Bag. Similarly, Yuchen Li’s Star, Star, Star touches upon intergenerational emotional bonds. The artist’s late grandmother is transformed into a "star," her light traveling through time to guide her descendants—a nod to Celtic mythology, where stars are seen as "gates for the soul."
朱伊茗 Yiming Zhu，蜕变 · ⻆宿星 · 红丝袋（系列），摄影，2025
Yiming Zhu，Metamorphosis · JiaoXiu Star · Red Silk Bag，Photography，2025
这或许告诉我们，无论是人类与非人类之间的联系，或是人类与人类之间的联结，这些新编的“神话” 提供了一个超越性别，回归本真的视角：“母系”，是否一种真正照见主体与他者(包括社会、世界等 宏大存在)的视角？而这种视角，是否又从某种程度上回应了辛西娅 · 埃勒所质疑的史前母系乌托邦中，女性象征性、永恒和原型化的刻板印象(更何况大多数支持史前母系文明的反而是男性)？
快接近答案了。我们再来看展览的最后一个摄影系列(如果是按照顺时针的回游动线行走在画廊中)，来自美国俄勒冈州的 Grace Weston 的《重塑缪斯系列》(From the series “Reclaiming the Muse”)，艺术家以精细构建的微缩布景摄影，探讨人类存在与叙事传统的复杂性，当芭比作为主角， 重新诠释了米开朗基罗的《创造亚当》，或是成为推动巨石的西西弗斯，父权结构传统语境中的“缪斯”，是否能重获主体性以及回到叙事中心？这让我想到展言中掷地有声的一句话：“旧史缄默不言，但此刻，新的神话，在她的手中。”
These works suggest that whether through human or non-human connections, these newly woven "myths" offer a perspective that transcends gender to return to the essence of being. Can "matriarchy" be a lens through which we truly see both the subject and the "Other" (including grand entities like society and the world)? Perhaps this perspective answers Cynthia Eller’s critique of the "archetypal" female stereotype by allowing women to be the active architects of their own stories.
The answer draws near. In the final series of the exhibition, Grace Weston (Oregon, USA) presents Reclaiming the Muse. Through meticulously constructed miniature dioramas, she explores the complexities of human narrative traditions. With Barbie as the protagonist—reinterpreting Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam or stepping into the role of Sisyphus—the "Muse" of the patriarchal canon finally regains her subjectivity. It brings to mind a resonant line from the curatorial text: "The old history remains silent, but now, a new myth rests in her hands."
Grace Wetson，“重塑缪斯”系列(选件) ，摄影，2021、2022、2023、2024
Grace Wetson，From the series “Reclaiming the Muse”，Photography，2021、2022、2023、2024