BANK is thrilled to announce Yibei Zhang‘s participation in “Hidden Within Matter,” a two-person exhibition opening April 3, 2026 at UCCA Clay and running through June 21, 2026. The show features newly commissioned works alongside recent pieces by Zhang, presented in dialogue with works by Zhou Xiaohu.
In Gallery 2, Zhang Yibei presents Murmurs of Water and Warblings of Birds. In this project, she turns her attention to the present moment through the lens of “phenology” (the study of cycles in nature), examining the entanglement and co-existence of nature and the artificial, life and technology, material and perception. The UCCA-commissioned Murmurs of Water and Warblings of Birds (2026) takes a cell phone tower disguised as a tree as its central element. Incorporating cast aluminum, marble and found objects into its spatial structure, the work constructs a perceptual field that audiences are free to ramble. Research into phenology brought the artist profound revelations—just as seasonality and climate shape the cycles of flowers blooming and animal migration, the multi-layererd networks connecting the environment and living things similarly condition how the world is perceived.
Although the work’s title evokes a natural soundscape of waterflows and birdsongs, it is actually silent. This deliberate quietness, along with the marble-carved seeds and internal organs, serve to activate the viewer’s own sensory awareness, directing their attention toward the invisible network of phenology formed by otherwise imperceptible circulations of matter and exchanges of information—including mobile coverage, wind, seeds, and the coordinated workings of internal organs. Visitors are invited to wander through the installation as if they themselves were sensing devices: if we remain open to all signals, what might we hear? Referencing the framework proposed by Donna Haraway, we may see ourselves as part of a knotted-together network of “sympoiesis” (making-with). In a state of quite observation, we can reflect on how the artificial intertwines with the natural, how technology becomes internalized as part of life, and how matter quietly records stories of coexistence between humans and the natural world.
