Stepping into Liu Shuai’s universe is like peering into a child’s cabinet of curiosities: one might find beetle droppings, a goose feather, the fragment of an abandoned ant nest, or a bullet found inside a tree trunk. These specimens, modest yet fascinating, form a miniature utopia free from anthropocentrism.

Born in Shandong province, China, Liu grew up collecting bugs and caring for pets. His keen interest in the entanglements between humans and nature underpins his multimedia practice, which ponders interspecies dynamics through themes of mortality, corporeality, nostalgia, and power. 

During the 15th Shanghai Biennale (2025–26), his temporary studio at VILLA tbh opened to the public as part of the event’s “City Projects.” Nestled within the tranquil Shanghai Botanical Garden, far away from urban commotion, the studio housed The Kiss (2025), an interactive installation co-created with bees. The work features bamboo stalks punctured by carpenter bees, which Liu had collected from old local neighborhoods and transformed into functional instruments dangling in the air. Commemorating the pollinators’ act of burrowing into stems to shelter and nurse their offspring, The Kiss tenderly traces the cycles of life while unfolding as a poetic collaboration between artist and insect.