第五届水手计划特展
2026.9.5-11.5
MACA Art Center
艺术家: 陈益青、陈逸飞、崔喻璇、何浩楠、Lauren Huret、黎晨驰、Longe Hunter、鲁雯泋、浦潇月、宋清羽、杨信 & 杨映梅、占有兵、赵燕娴、赵悦廷 & 谢丰玮
策展人：何伊宁、龙奕瑭
每一个时代都有自己的测绘方式。当今天的世界被卫星、算法与数据重新丈量，当具体的人被抽象为数据的光点，仍有一群人折返最古老的航线——以星辰为经，以大地为纬，像古老的水手一样，在行星的尺度上重新标定自身的位置。在坐标被不断重写、记忆被反复解域的时代，他们拒绝被数据定位，选择离开熟悉的港口，走向田野、废墟与远方。“在天成象，在地成形”——这句古旧的箴言，早已写下一种缠绕体感的导航术。
第五届“水手计划”的 12组创作者与两位特邀瑞士艺术家，正是这样一群当代的远行者。 他们从北京胡同的肌理走向云南的深山，从圣赫勒拿的孤岛潜入柬埔寨档案的暗室，从祖辈的针脚里打捞劳动的记忆，也在老人的监控影像中凝视衰老的重量。航线彼此殊异，却共享同一片星图——在具体的田野中，寻回那些被时代洪流冲散、却依然微微闪烁的坐标。
展览以中国传统星图中的“北斗”与“南斗”作为方法论的经纬，织就一张关于“绵延与归藏”、“往昔与此刻”的双重叙事星丛。北斗七星既引航程，也喻示肃杀与凋零：展览的一侧聚焦于那些沉入地层深处的记忆——战争的废墟、殖民的伤口、劳工的离散与被封存的档案。艺术家们如同守夜人，在圣赫勒拿岛的孤寂里、在柬埔寨的监狱档案里、在二战战俘营的素描里，打捞被时间吞噬的湮灭之痕。而南斗星群象征着延展与衍化：另一侧涌动着蓬勃的生命力与在地的韧性——植物的古老智慧、蜜蜂的神性辉光、民间的野生设计，以及老龄化社会中对“长寿”与“陪伴”的重新织造。这里有云南神蜂树下的共生，有胡同里野蛮生长的智慧，也有祖孙两代人通过针线缝合的时光。
在归藏与绵延的张力之间，是如同“左辅右弼”般的连接者。技术、媒介与公共参与，构成了展览的第三重维度。它们并非冰冷的工具，而是连接过去与未来的星桥——一段监控影像可以成为亲密的守望，一次田野录音可以让消逝的劳作之声重新响起。经由影像、声音与身体的介入，艺术家们将个体经验转化为公共记忆，将私人的痛楚转化为集体的疗愈。
在一个万物皆可被计算、却有更多存在拒绝被量化的时代，我们重拾“行星智慧”。MACA Art Center在此化身为一座当代的“观星台”，邀请每一位踏入展厅的观众，像水手一样，在北斗的历史凝眸与南斗的生命流变之间，重新校准体内的星图，认领那颗仍在缓缓旋转的精神坐标。
Planetary Navigation: As Above, So Below
The 5th Sailors Program Special Exhibition
Venue: MACA Art Center
Artists: Chen Yiqing, Chen Yifei, Cui Yuxuan, He Haonan, Lauren Huret, Li Chenchi, Longe Hunter, Lu Wenhui, Pu Xiaoyue, Song Qingyu, Yang Xin & Yang Yingmei, Zhan Youbing, Zhao Yanxian, Zhao Yueting & Xie Fengwei
Curators: He Yining, Long Yitang
Duration: 2026.9.5-11.5
Every era has its own cartography. Today, as the world is recalibrated by satellites, algorithms, and data, and concrete individuals are abstracted into mere data points, a group of people returns to the most ancient routes. Using the stars as longitude and the earth as latitude, they navigate like ancient mariners, recalibrating their positions on a planetary scale. In an era where coordinates are constantly rewritten and memories repeatedly deterritorialized, they refuse to be pinned down by data. Instead, they leave familiar ports for the field, the ruins, and the distant horizon. ‘As above in the heavens, so below on earth’—this ancient maxim has long inscribed an embodied art of navigation.
The twelve groups of creators of the 5th ‘Sailors Program’ and the two invited Swiss artists are precisely such contemporary voyagers. They journey from the urban textures of Beijing’s hutongs to the deep mountains of Yunnan; they dive from the isolation of St. Helena into the darkrooms of Cambodian archives; they salvage memories of labour from ancestral stitches and gaze upon the weight of ageing through surveillance footage of the elderly. Their routes diverge, yet they navigate by the same star map—seeking out those coordinates, scattered by the currents of our time, that still faintly glimmer in the field.
The exhibition adopts the ‘Big Dipper’ (Beidou) and the ‘South Dipper’ (Nandou) from traditional Chinese star maps as its methodological coordinates, weaving a dual narrative constellation of “concealment and continuity,” “the past and the present.” The Big Dipper guides the voyage but also signifies solemnity and withering: one side of the exhibition focuses on memories submerged deep within the geological strata—the ruins of war, colonial wounds, the diaspora of labourers, and sealed archives. Like night watchmen, the artists salvage the fading traces of obliteration swallowed by time, from the solitude of St. Helena, the prison archives of Cambodia, and the sketches of WWII POW camps. Conversely, the South Dipper symbolises expansion and evolution: the other side surges with vibrant vitality and localised resilience—the ancient wisdom of plants, the divine glow of bees, vernacular design, and the reweaving of ‘longevity’ and ‘companionship’ in an ageing society. Here, we find symbiosis beneath the sacred bee trees of Yunnan, the wild wisdom growing in the hutongs, and time stitched together by two generations.
Between the tension of concealment and continuity lie the connectors, acting as the celestial ‘companion stars’ (Zuo Fu and You Bi). Technology, media, and public participation constitute the third dimension of the exhibition. Rather than cold instruments, they are astral bridges connecting the past and the future—a piece of surveillance footage can become an intimate vigil; a field recording can resurrect the vanished sounds of labour. Through the intervention of images, sounds, and bodies, the artists transform individual experiences into public memory and private pain into collective healing.
In an age where everything can be calculated, yet so much of existence refuses to be quantified, we reclaim ‘planetary wisdom.’ Here, the MACA Art Center transforms into a contemporary ‘observatory.’ We invite every visitor stepping into the gallery to act as a mariner—between the historical gaze of the Big Dipper and the vital flux of the South Dipper, to recalibrate their internal star map and reclaim that slowly revolving spiritual coordinate.