Geng Dayou: Tai
shijiazhuang
June 6 – July 31, 2026
Hunsand Space (Shijiazhuang) is honored to announce the solo exhibition Tai（台） by artist Geng Dayou, opening June 6, 2026 at the Catholic Church in Beizhangcheng Village, Jingxing County. The exhibition brings together the artist's works from the past two years.
Artist: Geng Dayou
Exhibition: Tai
Duration: June 6 – July 31, 2026
Opening: 10:00 AM, Saturday, June 6, 2026
Live Streaming: 3:00 PM, Saturday, June 6, 2026
What is a tai? It is the balcony, the kitchen counter, the windowsill in a Chinese home. It is the village opera stage, the tea tray on the table, the prayer platform before a temple. A tai is never large — just big enough for one person to stand on, sit down, or kneel. It has no roof, yet it is where ordinary people do their daily practice. You don't need to retreat into the mountains or take monastic vows. All it takes is standing before your own tai, spacing out for a moment, sipping a cup of tea, lighting a cigarette — and in that instant, the world recedes by a meter.
Jung said that a person needs a temenos — a sacred precinct — to become whole. On the arch of his own house he carved a line in Latin: "Called or not called, the god will be present." That was his tai. And the Chinese have long had an even plainer word for it: lingtai（灵台） — the inner altar. Not a religious shrine, but that small, lucid corner of the mind where one answers to no one but oneself.
Geng Dayou brings together stainless steel, wool, and solid wood — the hardest metal touching the softest fiber. His materials are never neutral: cold and warm, hard and soft, heavy and light — these material relations act directly on the body's perception, touching something primal: a natural materialist worldview inscribed in the flesh. His works are themselves a series of tai, places where the body comes to a halt and reacquaints itself with its own weight and temperature.
Geng has carried this tai into a century-old church in Jingxing. Built in 1931, the church is stone through and through, its load-bearing columns round. Visitors move around these columns as they view the exhibition — the columns are round, and the works gathered around them are round as well. This is no coincidence. The viewer circling the columns is not a passive spectator: every turn is a tiny deviation. Geng traces this deviation back to the accidental swerve of atoms in Lucretius — the clinamen — that infinitesimal break in the chain of cause and effect, which is precisely where freedom and meaning are born.
June 6 — the death anniversary of Carl Gustav Jung. A village church. A ring of viewers circling stone columns. A set of numbers waiting to be recognized. The tai has never been far away. It waits in the most ordinary places, ready for someone to step onto it, to feel that small patch of solid ground beneath their feet. But Geng Dayou says: "Even the most unshakable foundation is born from the order of contingency."
"And we are living, right now, beneath a miracle."
Geng Dayou (b. 1998, Zibo, Shandong) currently lives and works in Shanghai. He holds a BSc in Psychology from King's College London and an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Sotheby's Institute of Art, London. His unconventional educational trajectory—spanning psychology and pure theory—has sharpened his sensitivity to the hidden emotional structures and collective memories that permeate public life. His conceptual practice moves across installation, moving image, sound, and video games, constructing situations through a theatrical language of absurdist humor to distill the paradoxes at the heart of modernity.
Solo Exhibition: Tai, Hunsand Space (Shijiazhuang) (Shijiazhuang, 2026). "When No One is Around, Dance Gracefully" was held at ShanghArt (Shanghai, 2023). Erewhon （Web，2022），Eternal Recerrence，33ml-offspace（Shanghai，2021）. Group Exhibition: H+ Xu Chongzhi Former Residence (Shanghai, 2025) ,Empathy Museum (Hangzhou, 2025), Center Art Museum (Hangzhou 2024), Ws Space x Shanghart (Shanghai, 2023), East Gallery (Nanjing, 2023), Baidu Xirang (Online, 2022), SpaceArtDao (Online, 2022) , Vault-Fringe Future Festival (London, 2021), Guardian Art Center (Beijing, 2021), Three Shadows Photography Art Center (Beijing, 2021) , All Club (Shanghai, 2021), Fibre（Shanghai, 2021), Powerlong Art Museum (Shanghai, 2021) , CouttsArt Center (Shanghai，2021), Slime Engine (Online，2021) ,The Coningsby Gallery (London, 2020) etc.
Following six months of renovation work, the foundational structure of the church has been reinforced, and the roof, windows, and walls have been restored, meticulously reviving the appearance of this village-level church prior to its abandonment. Consequently, our team is delighted to announce the inaugural opening of the church space for an exhibition on April 27th.
During the preparation for the opening exhibition, we have been pondering over what type of exhibition should be presented in such a specific space and how to conceptualize it. Though numerous ideas for exhibition planning have crossed our minds, whenever we are in the village of Beizhangcheng where the church is located, these curatorial plans and concepts seem deliberate and pale in the face of this ancient village. Especially at the end of 2023, when we, along with artists, came here after a heavy snowfall and saw several elderly people sunbathing in the village, one of them holding a baby not yet a year old - dressed in thick overalls, with a rosy red face, and a layer of chapped skin - the natural, primitive health, and vitality were unforgettable, gradually dissipating our somewhat superficial cultural imagination of this space...
Thus, for this opening exhibition, we have decided not to impose a specific theme and to forego the conventional release of a list of participating artists. Instead, we will rely on personal perceptions to select appropriate artists and their works to gradually enter this space, allowing a gradual connection to form between them, with time facilitating the revival and transformation of the space, and the inherent power of art guiding the space's attributes. After the exhibition opens, we will periodically introduce featured artworks and artists, together witnessing the process of their integration with this village church space under natural light.
So, we warmly welcome everyone to personally.
Exhibition Guidelines:
Due to its location within the Taihang Mountains, Hunsand Space (Shijiazhuang) is relatively remote, and thus, except for the exhibition opening, daily visits require prior reservations.
1.The scheduled visiting times are from Friday through Sunday every week(10:00-18:00). During other national holidays, please refer to the official WeChat notifications from the gallery for timely updates. For requests to visit during unscheduled periods, kindly send an email detailing your purpose and any exceptional circumstances; we will consider such requests on a case-by-case basis.
2.Reservation can be made either directly by scanning the QR code below or scan the QR code to add the gallery's customer service WeChat account. When contacting them, be sure to indicate the number of visitors, the desired date, and the specific time slot. Based on the prevailing conditions at that time, we will confirm whether the reservation has been successfully made. In order to secure your preferred time slot, it is recommended to book at least one week in advance.
3.Location and Parking: Please navigate to the church space using the provided GPS coordinates or directions. Parking is available both in the northern and southern areas of Beizhangcheng Village, near the banks of the Gantao River.
观展预约Exhibition Reservation：
客服微信二维码WeChat QR Code：
Photography Guidelines:
1.In consideration of gallery and church management, we do not permit personal or small-scale photography sessions for purely commercial purposes, especially those involving individual portraits, wedding and family photoshoots, or clothing photography. We warmly welcome all visitors to appreciate the exhibitions with a respectful attitude towards art and the artists' creative endeavors.
2.For individuals who wish to bring along a photographer and professional equipment for personal non-commercial shoots, it is essential to contact us in advance. Failure to do so may result in our right to terminate your visitation.
Important Notices:
1.Please ensure you adhere to your reserved visiting times; should any special circumstances arise necessitating a change in your appointment, kindly inform us beforehand to make the necessary adjustments.
2.To allow everyone an intimate experience with the church space and the exhibited works, we have not installed barriers within the exhibition area. We kindly request that visitors maintain a safe distance from the exhibits and refrain from touching them. Should any artwork be damaged due to personal actions, compensation at its full value will be required.
3.In the event of unforeseen circumstances leading to the suspension or cancellation of the exhibition, we will promptly notify you and arrange for an alternative viewing time.
Once again, we express our sincere gratitude for your interest in Ten Thousand Space. We look forward to welcoming you to the heart of the Taihang Mountains.
For any inquiries or assistance needed, please feel free to contact us anytime.
