2026
The Mountain within
FIELD
Materials + Surfaces
Architecture + Interiors
Material Innovation
DISCIPLINE
Furniture Design
Spatial Curation
Narrative Environments
OVERVIEW
Set within the shifting landscape of Yangmingshan, The Mountain Within translates the mountain's mist, geothermal heat, water, minerals and night into a spatial experience. Eight tea settings unfold through the exhibition, each responding to a different natural phenomenon. Through translucent layers, changing light and bodily movement, the mountain gradually becomes something to enter, inhabit and sense.
Enter the mountain through the body,
and sense it through the mist.
Enter the mountain through the body,
and sense it through the mist.
FIELD
Materials + Surfaces
Architecture + Interiors
Material Innovation
DISCIPLINE
Furniture Design
Spatial Curation
Narrative Environments
[1]
A Landscape of Veils
Translucent white veils divide the gallery into a sequence of loosely defined fields, layering the space like mist drifting through the mountain. Curved lines and openings guide the body through these shifting boundaries. Within them, eight tea settings respond to different expressions of the natural landscape—from mist and water to geothermal heat—allowing the landscape to unfold as a series of spatial encounters.
[2]
[3]
Choreographing the Body
Each landscape asks the body to encounter it differently. Displays rise like trees or settle close to the ground, inviting the viewer to bend, crouch, enter or look upward. Curved veils gather the body into enclosed fields, while darkness alters the pace of perception. Through these shifts in scale, posture and light, viewing becomes a physical experience of moving through the mountain.
[4]
[5]
A Mineral Constellation
The mineral tea setting takes the works of six artists as its points of orientation, unfolding into a suspended mineral cosmos. Six platforms orbit one another like celestial bodies, while a larger rock rests upon an irregular plane suggesting water. Across shifts of height, distance and weight, artworks and minerals exert a quiet gravitational pull—as though crystallised through time, pressure and transformation. Six distinct artistic languages are drawn into relation, forming a mineral constellation that seems to remain in slow motion.
[6]
Materialising Atmosphere
The atmosphere of each scene extends into its details. In the starlit cocktail area, works are illuminated at low intensity, allowing copper surfaces and beaded elements to catch subtle glimmers in the dark, as if time had briefly slowed. Natural motifs drawn from each exhibition zone are translated into graphic cues and printed on translucent fabric, adding another layer to the visual narrative. Interpretive texts are printed on opaque cotton, allowing image, language, light and material to remain within a coherent visual vocabulary.
[7]
[8]
The Mountain in Layers
The exhibition identity follows the same logic of translucency. Two layers of mesh overlap: a mountain landscape behind, and the title suspended in front through a pale gradient from white to soft green. As the viewer moves, image and typography subtly shift against one another, allowing the title to appear almost weightless—hovering within the mist of the mountain.