Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
As societies around the world confront the realities of rapid population aging, aging and death have become urgent topics that we must confront directly. How should we confront aging and even death of their loved ones and themselves? Initiated by the Research Center of Medical Sociology, Tsinghua University, with academically advised by Professor Jing Jun, Bringing Death Back into Life is an interdisciplinary group exhibition that centers on the end-of-life, calling for renewed reflection on aging, illness, mortality, and mourning.
Curated by Zhou Wenjing and Yue Mingyue, it is co-organized by MACA Art Center, and supported by China Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics. Featuring 21 creators from the fields of art, anthropology, sociology, medicine, and social work, the exhibition explores how we might coexist with death through diverse media including video, installation, painting, interactive technology, and archival materials.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
The concept Bringing Death Back into Life is drawn from the 2022 “Report of the Lancet Commission on the Value of Death: bringing death back into life”, which calls for a renewed understanding of end-of-life care and societal attitudes toward dying. The ways that people die have changed dramatically over the past 60 years – from family events with occasionally medical support to medical events with limited family support. On the one hand, scientific progress has contributed to the public perception that “death can be defeated” which made the dying stage overly dependent on medical intervention. On the other hand, narrow medical methods do not only cause high medical costs, but they also made millions of people suffer unnecessarily at the end of their lives. The report advocates that the time of dying should be embraced as a meaningful part of life.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
Prof. Jing Jun from School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University serves as the Academic Advisor of this exhibition and he wrote in his curatorial notes, “The title of this exhibition, Bringing Death Back into Life, seeks to break a long-standing taboo surrounding the very mention of death. This exhibition, however, chooses to confront death head-on—not for the sake of sensational provocation, but to restore death to its rightful place within the continuum of life, inviting us to view death as not the negation of life but rather an encoded extension of being alive.”
The exhibition approaches death through four thematic dimensions—The Body and Medicine, Dying and Dignity, Ecological and Cultural Disappearance, and Spiritual Transformation—to illuminate the complex entanglements between death in individual experiences and broader social, cultural, and public contexts.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
This artwork by Masuma Halai Khwaja titled “The Sea Will Be The Sea Whatever The Drops Philosophy”, showing sea waves created from barbed wire, was conceptualized in reaction to the news of the sinking of an overloaded fishing trawler off the coast of Messenia, in a bid to smuggle migrants into Europe in 2023. Composed of textile collage, embroidery on tapestry, “Casting Nets At The Ebbing Tide” addresses postcolonial baggage and dependence on Western validation. Reflecting on the intricate and tragic experiences undergone by thousands of migrants, the artist intends to draw people’s attention from the center to the periphery, reminding people that life is passing at an accelerated pace.
Jeremy Dennis, Sacredness of Hills, 2020.
Photography, 60×40 cm each, 2 in total. Courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
Similarly inspired by historical events, Jeremy Dennis’ “Sacredness of Hills” is an ongoing photographic series responding to the persistent desecration of Indigenous burial grounds in the Shinnecock Hills. What was erased by the colonial system and what the artist mourns are not only the people, events, and things in a specific place, but also the historical memory that is entrusted to it.
The scope of life in the exhibition is not limited to human beings, Herwig Scherabon’s “The Earth Will Spin Yet We Won’t Be Here” is based on 3D scans of plants, roots, trees and flowers taken in the Amazon in 2019. In the winter of 2019, the annual burnings in the Amazon rainforest made a major appearance in media. The artist simulated the entire process of burning these plants to charcoal black through digital technology. Lin Lecheng’s “Taklamakan: Life Series” portrays the poplar that lives in the Taklamakan Desert, which is known as “immortal for a thousand years, not falling for a thousand years after death, and not rotting for a thousand years after falling”. He captures the eternity and tragedy of the cycle of life and death in his paintings.
Herwig Scherabon, The Earth Will Spin Yet We Won’t Be Here, 2019.
3-channel audiovisual installation HD Video, sound, 2 min 30 sec.
Courtesy of the artist. Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
Lin Lecheng, Taklamakan: Life Series, 2025.
Painting on paper, 82×53 cm each, 5 in total.
Courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
Some of exhibits choose to start from the feeling of life, between the exhalation and inhalation at the end moment, to reshape the perception of death and life. Yun Feng’s “Heading Toward Where the Light Is” consists of moths scattered throughout the exhibition hall. He heard from Dr. Song, a palliative-care doctor, that when a patient is about to leave this world, they usually tell the patient: “Just head toward where the light is.” This reminds Yun Feng of the image of a moth and “moth to a fire”, which seems to contain the hope that has not been fulfilled for a long time and the truth about life.
Zheng Que’s “Dislocation” centers on the structural tension embedded in the state of dying: Whether it is the wax block melted by breath in the black box, which seem to melt and solidify the intangible state of the end-of-life stage, or the black memory foam beneath the viewer’s feet, which gives the body a sense of congestion, the artist compares this structural tension to “everything suspended in a state of pending judgment” that visitors can experience personally.
Yun Feng, Heading Toward Where the Light Is, 2025.
Black-and-white silver gelatin paper, Blu Tack, Dimensions variable.
Courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
Zheng Que, Dislocation, 2025.
Video installation, memory foam, wax, acrylic, Dimensions variable.
Courtesy of the artist.
Zheng Que, Dislocation, 2025.
Video installation, memory foam, wax, acrylic, Dimensions variable.
Courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
In the contemporary medical system dominated by technology, drugs and medical equipment shape the way the body survives. Zhou Wenjing’s “Women’s Series: Intrauterine Device (IUD)” referred to historically documented forms to fabricate around 300 life-sized replicas. These material tools, which bear witness to the complex relationship between human technology and life, were placed on an exquisite blue velvet background, creating an artistic tension.
Zhou Wenjing, Women’s Series: Intrauterine Device (IUD), 2014.
Copper, 140×120 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
Zhang Muchen, Breath, 2014-2025.
Wood, TPU airbags, bellows, oxygen mask, motor, 200×200×160 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
Zhang Muchen’s interactive installation draws inspiration from mid-20th century ICU ventilators that assist or replace natural breathing via mechanical ventilation. Centered on the imagery of breath, the work remains silent when unapproached. As viewers move closer to its core, the mechanical respiration rhythm accelerates from steady to erratic, culminating in suffocation. When one nears the mask, the system abruptly stops, leaving only the shrill whine of a choked motor. The artist attempts to explore the subjectivity of life under technological intervention through this medical device that assists or replaces natural breathing with “mechanical ventilation” technology, as well as the set of life order maintained by modern medical system and technology.
Some works are directly related to Chinese reality, “Doctor Me” by Zhou Wenjing×Jing Jun presents the commonly stored medications of nine families from various urban and rural regions. Inside each family’s private drawer lies a small, personal pharmacy—more or less filled with “self-prescribed” drugs. He Jinwei’s “The History as the Present Series” originates from old family photographs taken in the 1960s, featuring relatives of the previous generation. The printed “lace” patterns, like half-drawn translucent curtains, veil the fading of familial memory.
Zhou Wenjing×Jing Jun, Doctor Me, 2025.
Drawers, common medicine boxes, 46×38×12 cm each, 9 in total
Courtesy of the artists and the volunteers.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
He Jinwei, History as the Present I & II, 2023.
Oil on canvas, 110×130 cm each, 2 in total.
Courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
A broader historical perspective revolves around traditional Chinese discussions on death-related issues: Wang Zhigang’s “Skeleton Fantasy Show” was digitally reinterpreted through interactive technology, focusing on the original painting’s skeleton puppet section. By allowing the audience to control the skeleton through interaction, they engage physically with the artwork, which in turn stimulates deep reflections on life and death, emotional attachments, control, and the inevitable end of all things. Liang Shaoji’s “Stele” takes “silkworms” as the creative carrier, and the dynamics of silkworms point to the ancient Chinese silkworm text, and also imply the ancient symbol of death and rebirth, with the unique concept of time in the traditional Chinese spirit, conveying the artist’s poetic comprehension of existence, life and death.
Wang Zhigang, Skeleton Fantasy Show, 2018.
New media art interactive installation, 104.84×188.16 cm
Courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
Liang Shaoji, Stele, 2008-2014.
Three-channel HD video, sound, 10 min 6 sec.
Courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
Perhaps the core of the exhibition is still to encourage the public to think about the emotional and ethical aspects of “how to live with death”. In 2019, a craftsperson known as Xiao Jie began taking online orders, and later founded a studio dedicated to making these bears. Xiang Zhilin invited bereaved individuals and craftspeople to voluntarily participate in this exhibition, resulting in the creation and display of six “Remembrance Bears”. Photographs of the original garments were taken, printed, and mounted on the wall. The completed bears were placed in acrylic boxes for preservation and displayed in front of their corresponding images. The remembrance bear serves as both a vessel of repose and a bridge of connection—reposing the soul of the departed while soothing the living, restoring the severed bond between the bereaved and the deceased, while rekindling the bereaved’s severed social ties.
Xiang Zhilin, Remembrance Bear, 2021–2025.
Clothes of the bereaved (fabrics), Dimensions variable.
Courtesy of the artist and the volunteers.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
The video montage “To Tell or Not?” by Liang Yun×Jing Jun originated from the films including “The Farewell”, a cultural conflict over illness disclosure unfolds—a theme that resonates across numerous films exploring how Chinese families navigate the tensions of illness and death amid divergent values and generational divides.
Liang Yun×Jing Jun, To Tell or Not?, 2025.
Single-channel video, sound, 15 min 19 sec.
Courtesy of the artists.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
Liang Yun×Jing Jun, To Tell or Not?, 2025.
Single-channel video, sound, 15 min 19 sec.
Courtesy of the artists.
“Reverse Care” originated from a research project on death narratives initiated by Professor Jing Jun of Tsinghua University in early 2023. These oral histories focus on multiple dimensions, including the circumstances of death, life experiences, the course of illness, the final stage of life, funeral arrangements, social support networks, and the physical and emotional stress experienced by caregivers. A total of 146 narrative texts were collected, amounting to 485,000 words. Many of these texts reveal the phenomenon of reverse care at the end of life. Being different from previous studies that focus on end-of-life care, this project observes the widespread phenomenon of “end-of-life reverse care”, that is, the dying person shows the consciousness and behavior of caring for others in the last stage of life, revealing the subjectivity and self-awareness of the dignity of life.
Song Min×Jing Jun, Reverse Care, 2024.
Archival documents, 42×59 cm each, 2 in total.
Courtesy of the artists and the volunteers.
Exhibition Installation View of Bringing Death Back into Life at MACA in 2025, Photo by Yang Hao
As Zhou Wenjing and Yue Mingyue, curators of this exhibition put in their curatorial notes, “The exhibition foregrounds aging and death as central themes. It invites open dialogue on end-of-life care, truth-telling at the end of life, palliative medicine, modern death, the postcolonial politics of dying, and the wisdom embedded in traditional cultural understandings of life and death.” Meanwhile, Bringing Death Back into Life is not an exhibition about endings, but a contemplative space for unfinished emotions and shared public imagination. Audiences are invited to think about the unavoidable questions: How do we confront “death”? And how might we deeply understand what it means to “live” through thinking about the value of finale?
The exhibition remains on view till August 17, 2025.
Courtesy of MACA, edited (EN) by Sue/CAFA ART INFO
About the Exhibition
Dates: 2025.06.29-08.17
Venue: MACA, Beijing, China
Academic Advisor: Jing Jun
Curators: Zhou Wenjing, Yue Mingyue
Executive Curator: You Mingda
Academic Assistants: Song Min, Xu Lanyang, Jiang Tingting
Artists: Jeremy Dennis [US], Duan Yan, He Jinwei, Han Wuzhou, Masuma Halai Khwaja [PK], Liang Shaoji, Lin Lecheng, Liang Yun×Jing Jun, Lu Guijun, Herwig Scherabon [AT], Song Min×Jing Jun, Wang Zhigang, Xiang Zhilin, Yue Mingyue×Jing Jun, Yun Feng, Zhang Muchen, Zhang Xiaotao, Zheng Que, Zhou Wenjing×Jing Jun, Zhuang Kongshao
