This curatorial project explores how traditional art can operate within contemporary exhibition frameworks—not as preserved heritage, but as an active narrative structure.
The theoretical foundation of this project draws from Roland Barthes’s argument in Mythologies that: Myth is not a story, but a system of communication.
If myth is a structure that naturalises ideology, then curating myth is not about retelling narratives—it is about exposing the mechanisms through which meaning becomes “normal”.
From Dragon as Symbol to Dragon as Structure
The project centres on Eryao’s shadow play work Wishing Your Child Becomes a Dragon.
Traditionally, the dragon is understood as a cultural symbol of fortune and power. However, following Barthes’ concept of second-order signification, the dragon here is approached not as folklore imagery but as an ideological structure. The work topic does more than express parental hope. It encodes intergenerational pressure, social mobility anxiety, as well as identity shaped through expectation.
In this exhibition, the dragon becomes a mechanism that naturalises these structures across time.
Curating as Translation
Drawing on Carolee Thea’s understanding of the curator as mediator and extending toward cultural translation theory, this project treats exhibition-making as a process of re-articulation rather than preservation.
Tradition is not displayed as authenticity. It is relocated into a new discursive and perceptual framework.
Spatial Structure
Rather than retelling this narrative, the exhibition spatialises it. The exhibition was held in three interconnected areas in the environment.
SPOT A
At the entrance, the audience will see the shadow dragon created by Er Yao, hanging on the white wall. The materials of the works are clearly visible: leather fragments, joints and other structure. The first meeting was quiet, almost like a museum. The curatorial text at the entrance introduces the cultural meaning of the dragon and the idiom “望子成龙”, which provides an easy entrance for international audiences. The tradition here is readable.
Corridors
From this still dragon body project, the audience enters a narrow corridor. In this transitional space, the single-channel projection displays the stop-motion animation sequence frame by frame.
Dragons slowly assemble themselves through obvious repetition. Limbs can change. The body will get longer. Movement is mechanical, not smooth. The projection scale is slightly enlarged, so that the shadow goes beyond the picture and overflows the wall and floor.
The corridor acts as a compression. The audience must personally experience the transformation of the dragon. Here, myth becomes a process.
Scattered phrases appeared faintly on the wall, almost illegible: “Expectation.” “Success.” “Obedience.” “Future.”
SPOT B
The last area leads to a darker projection space. This one-minute stop-motion animation is played continuously and circularly on a big screen. There are no seats. Visitors are free to come in and out.
The dragon’s movements are unstable. Its segmented body bends awkwardly, becoming less proud and more like a monster. There is no narrative climax. No transformation is complete. The cycle starts again.
The time of this exhibition is cyclical and nonlinear. The lack of a fixed starting point reinforces the concept that cultural expectations are inheritance rather than choice.
Engaging with moving image exhibition theory, particularly the writings of Erika Balsom, this project imagines the exhibition space as a temporal architecture rather than a static display.
Time in this exhibition is not only media duration. It is cultural persistence—the long repetition of expectation across generations.
Ethical Scale
If myth influences how we understand the world, and exhibitions influence how we understand myth, then curating is never neutral.
Instead of celebrating the dragon as cultural heritage, this exhibition questions how such narratives shape identity and expectation in contemporary society.
The project, therefore, operates not as cultural nostalgia but as a speculative curatorial method testing how traditional narrative forms continue to organise contemporary life.
