At a time when disconnection and linkage, blockage and networking are interwoven, the world is experiencing a dramatic value reconfiguration: the game of island-chaining and regionalization, the wrestling between anti-globalization and the new localism, the massive rise of the global South, the impact of the AI revolution, the intensification of geographic conflicts, and the confrontation of cultural identities and values ...... Disruption and transformation have quietly infiltrated the very flesh of daily life. The Fifth Hangzhou Fiber Art Triennial is titled “Re-Constellations”, which is precisely an artistic response to this proposition of the times - When the plural of “constellations” forms the dome of the sky that we look up to, its metaphor points not only to the visual order of the universe, but also to the eternal impulse of human civilization to weave meanings amid alienation and integration.

Humanity's gaze into the stars began with the quest for the origin of the world. In the course of observing the stars, our ancestors visually connected neighboring stars into diagrams and attributed them to images of totems, deities, and heroes. These imaginary groups of stars were the prototypes of “constellations.” Stars that are physically separated by light years form a close visual association on the surface of the celestial sphere due to the parallax effect of observers on Earth. This “misaligned” wisdom in observing the stars not only contributed to the nautical charts of the age of navigation but also became the cultural cornerstone on which civilizations constructed their view of the universe.

Ancient Greeks saw a hunter with a club in Orion; Sumerians regarded it as the “Bull of Heaven”, and ancient Egyptians gave it the symbol of “Soul Guide”; the ancient Chinese system of “the Three Enclosures and Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions” corresponds the officials of the celestial world to the bureaucracitc system on earth, weaving the cosmic order of “the harmony of heaven and humanity”. Each classification of the constellations is a civilization's unique answer to the question of “humans’ place in the universe”. The lines joining the stars go beyond astronomical markers to become visual allegories of the spirit of civilization.

The title of this year’s Triennial, “Re-Constellations”, originates from an ancient rhetorical metaphor shared across civilizations: likening the starry sky to a woven textile. In the Hindu epic Puranas, expanding upon the cosmology of the Rig Veda, the creation of the universe by Brahma is imagined as an act of weaving—warp and weft forming the web of life. In Islamic astronomy, the emphasis in the Qur’an on celestial order inspired a tradition of geometric weaving patterns as a means to comprehend the orbits of heavenly bodies. In China, the Book of Songs (Shijing, “Minor Court Hymns – Great East”) poetically describes, “She stands, that Weaving Maiden, weaving all day, seven times she moves,” marking the first time the movement of the star Vega (the Weaving Maiden) was aligned with the motions of earthly textile labor. The “seven shifts” of the star became a celestial projection of the loom’s rhythm, endowing the act of weaving with a cosmological and spiritual significance.

In 1930, the International Astronomical Union divided the celestial sphere into 88 standardized constellations based on the ancient Greek constellations. This seemingly “scientific and universal” action was, in fact, a cultural extension of European colonial hegemony. When the telescope arrived with the colonizer's fleet, the right to name the stars and the criteria for dividing the sky were incorporated into the Western cognitive framework: the Chinese “twenty-eight Lunar Mansions”, the Arabian ‘al-manazil’ group of stars, and the Mayan concept of “axis of the universe” are either dissolved or marginalized to cultural fragments. This “unification of constellations” is essentially a cognitive colonization masked by technical rationality - just as it is difficult to accommodate multiple patterns in a single warp and weft fabric, the starry sky narrative in the process of modernity has lost its due richness because of the Western-centrism that dominates it.

In the era of geopolitical restructuring, reviewing the cultural differences in the classification of constellations has transcended the realm of astronomy and has become a profound questioning of the relationship between globalization and localization. When the “twenty-eight lunar mansions” are not only astrological coordinates, but also poetic carriers of “Vega” in the Shijing (The Book of Poetry), the re-discovery of their value is a redistribution of power in terms of “what narratives can prevail”. The theme of the exhibition, “Re-Constellations”, is based on this profound demand: rejecting a single “global standard”, so that the imagination of the starry sky of every civilization can find its coordinates in the contemporary perspective.

The exhibition practice of “Re-Constellations” is not only a tribute to the plurality of cosmic cognition, but also a reflection of human society. In the gallery, artists will use fiber as a medium to reweave the “starry sky narratives” of different civilizations. These works are not only a visual feast, but also an exploration of “how to build communion amidst differences” - just as the stars appear to be separate but reflect each other on the surface of the celestial sphere, human civilization should also maintain its uniqueness while at the same time weave a network of connection.