Home and Beyond: curating as a space for global imagination

What does it truly mean to curate an exhibition? Not merely to display artworks, but to create the conditions in which art can generate new relationships between imagination, society, and history. This question lies at the core of Home and Beyond, a project inaugurating Hou Hanru’s long-term curatorial series devoted to the idea of place in contemporary art. The exhibition transforms the library into a space of research and experimentation, conceived both as a site for study and as an exhibition platform. Here, curating unfolds as an open process in which the conception, production, and presentation of artworks intertwine within a constantly evolving field of possibilities. Envisioned as a kind of “Temporary Autonomous Zone,” the exhibition explores the dynamics of migration, exchange, and transformation that shape contemporary art in the age of globalization. The notion of “home” thus emerges as a mobile territory - not a fixed dwelling but a provisional space where thought and creation converge, allowing art to build connections across cultures and imagine new forms of belonging in a world in constant motion.