“In the Great Wilderness, countless beings unlike any other dwell.” 「大荒之中，多有異人。」
– The Classic of Mountains and Seas 山海经 (circa 4th century BCE – 2nd century CE)
Myths across cultures speak of monsters born at the threshold: from the Hindu churning of the ocean of milk, to Mesoamerican cosmogonies of worlds birthed through divine sacrifice, to the shapeshifting hybrids of The Classics of Mountains and Seas. These beings defy easy categories—part god, part ghost, part exile.
“Monsters at the Crossroads” gathers three artists whose work envisions contemporary mythologies of migration, memory, and monstrous transformation. Following a debut at SPRING/BREAK New York (Borders of Paradise), this exhibition reunites Liu Tianlian and Tiger Chengliang Cai, and welcomes Jasser Membreno into a speculative dialogue on diasporic being.
In Liu Tianlian’s Royal Wedding in Hell (2022), the folk tale of “Zhong Kui marrying off his sister” unfolds as a fever-dream procession. Silk-bound demons parade through infernal gardens, bearing dowries and drums, while Zhong Kui trails behind, his gaze full of doubt. Liu’s work transforms this comedic tradition into a sharp meditation on gendered duty and migration, asking: who scripts the rituals of belonging, and who plays the monster?
Tiger Chengliang Cai offers a cosmic parody of myth in “Churning the Donut Nebula (and Birth of the Conflict)” (2025), where a serpent swirls through a psychedelic galaxy—a playful riff on Hindu cosmogony. His “donutverse” mixes allegory, bureaucracy, and speculative absurdity, situating mythic collapse and creation in a digitized age. Between spaceship and scripture, Tiger’s work imagines exile as an epic looping spiral of rebirth and resistance.
Jasser Membreno fuses Mesoamerican and Central American mythologies with Latinx urban life in Los Angeles, crafting a vibrant, hybridized pantheon of ancestral spirits and glitchy deities. In works like “Tongue Tied Directions” and “Face Off,” twisted bodies chant across tropical terrains—tongues tangled, saints haunted, Nahuales shimmering in neon. Membreno reclaims the monster as a sacred diasporic figure: part memory, part mutation, wholly alive.
Together, these artists propose monsters not as threats but as guides—embodying the flux between homeland and ghostland, language and silence, heaven and hell. Drawing from the The Classics of Mountains and Seas,” “Mahabharata,” and “Popol Vuh,” “Monsters at the Crossroads” frames border-crossing as both transformation and ritual. The exhibition is a speculative archive of thresholds—ritual, spectacle, and resistance mapped in vibrant color and mythic force.
About the Curator:
Ann Shi is an independent curator, advisor, and archivist specializing in Chinese ink painting and contemporary diasporic practices. With academic backgrounds in Mathematics (BA, MMath, Oxford) and Art Business (MA, Sotheby’s), her curatorial approach blends literati lineage, speculative poetics, and transnational critique. (IG: @annonymous_cynist)
About the Space:
a poco art archive is a curatorial incubator in Culver City dedicated to showcasing experimental, research-based, and archival practices. We believe archiving is not static preservation, but an evolving act of storytelling, care, and critical inquiry. (IG: @a.poco.art.collective)
