Kent Chan, Alvin Luong, Solveig Qu Suess @ Art Museum at the University of Toronto - "Dwelling Under Distant Suns" Exhibition Curated by Yantong Li

Dwelling Under Distant Suns

Kent Chan, Alvin Luong, Solveig Qu Suess

Curated by Yantong Li 

Art Museum at the University of Toronto

September 4 – December 20, 2025

Kent Chan

Future Tropics, 2023–24 

Film still composite 

Two-channel video 

© Kent Chan. Image courtesy of the artist

Alvin Luong 

Film still of Endowment, 2024 

Video, 11:05 min 

© Alvin Luong. Courtesy of the artist

Solveig Qu Suess 

Film still of Holding Rivers, Becoming Mountains. Video, 2025

© Solveig Qu Suess. Courtesy of the artist

The Art Museum at the University of Toronto presents the exhibition Dwelling Under Distant Suns, curated by Master of Visual Studies in Curatorial Studies graduate student Yantong Li, which addresses environmental precarity by highlighting the struggle to make visible the increasingly unpredictable landscape.

Works by Kent Chan, Alvin Luong, and Solveig Qu Suess

Dwelling Under Distant Suns grapples with the challenge of representing our planet’s growing climate crisis, especially environmental dangers that feel distant or out of sight. The artists in the exhibition turn to speculative storytelling and myth-making to bring a sense of immediacy to these realities, while interrogating the way we currently consume media about environmental precarity with a focus solely on the spectacular and dramatic, with little patience for things that require more time and attention.

“On a recent trip back home to Yunnan, I was struck by the fact that I could no longer see snow and ice on the peaks of the Cangshan Mountain, which has maintained frozen terrain for decades,” says Yantong Li. “An unstable climate has made the mountainous environment precarious, with native vegetation in gradual decline and water cycles becoming unpredictable. This sight was a direct visualization of climate-induced catastrophe — sensed only in longue durée — and I wanted to locate methodologies to represent these disparate sites across time and space. I included film-based works in this exhibition because representations of catastrophe across digital media have wreaked havoc on our attention span, rendering viewers as passive voyeurs. All the film works in the exhibition require lengthy sit-ins, denying immediate consumption but also extending an invitation to viewers to engage in a dialogue, with the only prerequisite being the willingness to sit with it.”

Alvin Luong 

Cyanide Debt, 2025

Video still

© Alvin Luong. Courtesy of the artist

The exhibition features a new commissioned film by Alvin Luong, Cyanide Debt (2025), which restages and reimagines a mass cyanide poisoning in Bangkok as the artist creates a weak solution of cyanide using cassava, Thailand’s primary agricultural export. 

Solveig Qu Suess 

Film still of Holding Rivers, Becoming Mountains 

Video, 2025

© Solveig Qu Suess. Courtesy of the artist

Solveig Qu Suess 

Film still of Holding Rivers, Becoming Mountains 

Video, 2025

© Solveig Qu Suess. Courtesy of the artist

Solveig Qu Suess also uses archival materials that complicate our understanding of historical events by meditating on the downstream politics of hydroelectric development affecting the Mekong River. 

Kent Chan

Film still of Future Tropics, 2023–24

Two-channel video 

© Kent Chan. Image courtesy of the artist

Kent Chan

Film still of Solar Orders, 2024

Two-channel video, 17’41

© Kent Chan

In Kent Chan’s work, the artist pushes observations of tropical expansion due to the climate crisis to extreme ends, arriving upon a fictional scenario of a future global tropic that blurs geographies, histories, and cultures.

ART MUSEUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Justina M. Barnicke Gallery

7 Hart House Circle, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H3

artmuseum.utoronto.ca

The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea @ Baltimore Museum of Art

The Way of Nature

Art from Japan, China, and Korea

Baltimore Museum of Art

September 21, 2025 - March 8, 2026

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea, which draws on the museum’s extensive holdings to consider the importance of nature in East Asian cultures. The exhibition features more than 40 objects, from magnificent ink drawings to beautifully crafted stoneware and poignant contemporary photographs and prints. Collectively, the works reflect on nature as a vital source of creative inspiration and spiritual connection and consider human existence within the complexity of the vast natural world across centuries and into the present day. The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea is part of the BMA’s Turn Again to the Earth initiative, which explores the relationships between art and the environment.

“The Way of Nature offers an insightful look at the intertwining roots of artistic expression and the experience of the natural world through vibrant works from the BMA’s Asian art collection. It’s an exciting opportunity to see objects on view for the first time, or in a long time, through a lens that is both accessible and meaningful, as many of us seek connection through and to nature,” said Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “As the BMA focuses on expanding its collection with the work of artists from around the globe, we are excited to continue to share more of our holdings, and the stories they contain, with our community.”

The Way of Nature is organized around four overarching themes that engage with elemental aspects of the natural world and human intervention within it. The exhibition opens with a section that examines depictions, interpretations, and connections to the qualities of air, water, and stone. Among the highlights is a handmade Fireman's Coat (hikeshi banten) with Hawk and Waves (Japan, early- to mid-20th century) by an unidentified artist. The intricately sewn object depicts a hawk soaring above turbulent waves, suggesting that the firefighter who chose the design sought the protective powers of water, strength, and keen vision. During a fire, the beautiful imagery would have been worn on the interior, only to be revealed once the fire was extinguished. The section also includes works such as the evocative ink drawing Water and Mountain Landscape (China, 1955) by the artist Huang Junbi and the densely decorated wood and jade sculpture Miniature Mountain with Longevity Motifs (China, late 18th - early 19th century) by an unidentified artist. 

The second section explores the significance of the changing seasons as visual indicators of nature’s transformative power, whether in the experience of wild terrain or in meticulously tended gardens. Across East Asia, emblems of the seasons, such as plums for the spring and chrysanthemums for the fall, are both often shared within communities and widely referenced in art. A case in this section includes a range of objects featuring plum blossoms, such as the hanging scroll Plum Branch and Full Moon (Japan, 1905-1915) by Kamisaka Sekka and the stoneware Bowl Decorated with Plum Branch and Crescent Moon (China, 13th century) by an unidentified artist. The section also includes a stunning Buddhist Priest's Robe (Kesa) in Karaori with Floral Designs (Japan, 1750-1868) by an unidentified artist.

The Way of Nature continues with works that capture human intrusion into the natural realm, as artists reveal humanity’s environmental impact through both imagery of calamitous events and in more subtle and ambiguous scenes. In his series Between Mountains and Water (2014–2017), Chinese artist Zhang Kechun examined the effects of human activities on the landscape in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, while Japanese artist Leiko Shiga documented the aftermath of Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami in the poignant photo series Rasen Kaigan. The exhibition concludes with consideration of the spiritual transcendence that can be found in nature. This final section is anchored by the eight-panel screen Ten Symbols of Long Life (Korea, mid- to late 19th century) by an unidentified artist. The complex screen incorporates eight separate paintings to convey a wish for longevity, as embodied through such symbols as cranes, bamboo, water, and sun.

The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea is curated by Frances Klapthor, BMA Associate Curator of Asian Art.

BMA - BALTIMORE ART MUSEUM 

10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218

artbma.org