Opening Dates: 27th October – 27th November, 2025
Location: NYU Shanghai Qiantan Campus East Building 3rd Floor, Semi-Enclose Exhibition Space & Outdoor Terrace
Book a Visit: Contact Liangliang at lz777@nyu.edu (For Non-NYU Members Only)
Are you ready to encounter the Earth as a living community of mutual flourishing?
Weaving together ecofeminist stories and practices from China, Asia, the Americas, and Antarctica, Gaia Commons is a living, breathing space. It invites visitors to pause amid the rush of daily life and reconnect with the living Earth. Together, we reimagine the planet not as property but as commons—a living field of shared becoming.
The exhibition unfolds through four chapters, each tracing the growth of ecofeminist practice across different fields.
In Flora and Feminists, curated by Duke Kunshan University, plants become metaphors for women’s knowledge and the politics of life. Artists and scholars together reveal how flora have borne witness to, and participated in, humans histories—within suppressed bodies and silenced landscapes,they have nurtured the wisdom of resistance and healing.
In Guinan School & Qiji Art Center: Thousand Seeds Program, rural aesthetic education takes root as an act of renewal. Teachers and children weave, dye, and create together, embodying the belief that “education is inter-being.” Through learning and growing side by side, they cultivate an ecological awareness that looks toward a regenerative future.
In Living Systems, women from Yungu Eco-Community begin from the body as origin, extending networks of regeneration—from kitchen to field, from household to community. Through daily labor, they reclaim the power of care, turning ecology into a way of living.
Toward the end of the exhibition, WildBound offers a deepened invitation to listen—the wind, birdsong, and the whisper of mycelium weave a dialogue beyond human language,reminding us that the wisdom of the world often flows through silence.
Gaia Commons is not a fixed space,
but a shared, embodied practice.
It calls for a gentle courage,
and for relearning
the art of breathing with the Earth
and co-living with its myriad of beings.
May you,
in this singular moment,
feel the 4.5-billion-year pulse of the Earth,
and encounter anew
the miracle of
breathing as one with the world.
Hosted by the Inclusive Ecology Collective and co-curated with Duke Kunshan University, NYU Shanghai, Qiji Art Center, Yungu Eco-Community, and WildBound, Gaia Commons is the first community-engaged ecofeminist exhibition in the history of NYU Shanghai.
Explore the stories behind Gaia Commons:
- Origins of Gaia Commons: Listening to the Earth
- Flora and Feminists: The Subversive Science of Botany
- The Thousand Seeds of Art: Weaving Life, Learning, and the Living Earth
- Living Systems: From Inner Ecology to Regenerative Worlds
- The Song of the Earth: WildBound Journeys of Regeneration
