Illustrator Tianhua Mao has imagined the museum of the future – and it’s gelatinous

Date
17 May 2016

For a new series, Museum of Tomorrow, New York-based illustrator Tianhua Mao has dreamt up a weird and wonderful squad of living exhibits, their gooey anatomy visible through translucent flesh. Somewhere between the Millennium Dome’s Body Zone and sentient jelly, on display is a sleeping blue giant hooked up to an interactive touch-screen, miniature solar systems which hang from the ceiling and capsules filled with colourful organs that float around the stairwells.

The project was inspired by a speculative take on curating her own work. “I thought it would be excited to put all my weird ideas together and hold an exhibition, so I drew these buildings and viewers and curated my own show.” Although the exhibits are entirely whimsical, the institution’s name was inspired by Beijing’s Today Art Museum, which Tianhua visited frequently as an undergrad, and its architecture references The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “In my museum the exhibits themselves are more organic and alive than the outside world,” she says. “I wanted to imagine the weird relationship between viewers and exhibits.” Tianhua flips this idea on its head at the series’ finale, as a looming figure overhead reveals that the visitors have been the exhibit all along.

Above

Tianhua Mao: Museum of Tomorrow

Above

Tianhua Mao: Museum of Tomorrow

Above

Tianhua Mao: Museum of Tomorrow

Above

Tianhua Mao: Museum of Tomorrow

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Laura Snoad

Laura is a London-based arts journalist who has been working for It’s Nice That on a freelance basis since 2016.

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