Memory in Transformation — Bodies and Posthuman Imaginaries, a group exhibition featuring 18 artists and curated by Kira Wu and Zelene Jiang Schlosberg, will open at The Research House for Asian Art in Chicago on Friday, September 18, 2026.
The opening reception will take place from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.

Drawing its point of departure from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the exhibition considers transformation in relation to the body, memory, artificial intelligence, robotics, and emerging posthuman conditions. More than two thousand years ago, Ovid brought together stories in which human and divine figures became animals, plants, stars, stones, and beings endowed with powers beyond ordinary human capacity. Today, technology once again asks us to reconsider the limits and possibilities of the human body.

As genetic technologies, machine intelligence, autonomous vehicles, conversational robots, caregiving machines, and AI-generated content enter everyday life, they alter not only what we encounter but also how experience is formed and remembered. The human, the humanlike nonhuman, the posthuman: where do the boundaries lie?

The exhibition considers whether artists working today may belong to one of the last generations whose memories of childhood or youth were formed before generative AI became a pervasive presence in everyday life. Life moved differently then. These artists carry the imprints of that earlier world while remaining highly sensitive to the technological realities now emerging around them.
From this perspective, Memory in Transformation — Bodies and Posthuman Imaginaries carries a certain melancholy. Facing the future, we move forward with imagination and longing; at the same time, we look back, summoning memories and ghosts. Under the illumination, pressure, and provocation of posthuman conditions, imagination and memory continually pull at one another, generating new forms of transformation and new visual languages.

The exhibition does not seek definitive answers. Instead, it creates a space for attention, understanding, and questioning. The participating artists approach the multidimensional, heterogeneous, and contingent nature of experience and memory in ways that range from subtle to bold.

At the center of the exhibition are works shaped by the artists’ own embodied labor—by hands carrying sweat, salt, and bodily warmth. Even where technology enters the work, the body remains the primary site of perception.
This exhibition offers not a total view, but a cross-section: a fluid, divergent, and interconnected field.

Participating Artists
Arthur Yuan, Beile Hu, Brielle Stein, David Lozano, Nick Fury, Cherry Yung, Richard Hull, Xinmo Li, Zihan Cui, Xinyu Wo, Zihan Mo, Olivia Lee, Wei Lin, True Markham, Violet Yin, Xinlyu Wang, Zhang Ming, and Zelene Jiang Schlosberg.

Curators
Kira Wu and Zelene Jiang Schlosberg
Exhibition Information
Exhibition: Memory in Transformation — Bodies and Posthuman Imaginaries
Exhibition Dates: September 18–October 11, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, September 18, 2026, 6:00–9:00 PM
Venue: The Research House for Asian Art
Address: 3217 S. Morgan St., Chicago, IL 60608

Official Website

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Tags: Arthur Yuan, Beile Hu, Body and Technology, Brielle Stein, Cherry Yung, Chicago, David Lozano, Kira Wu, Memory in Transformation — Bodies and Posthuman Imaginaries, Nick Fury, Olivia Lee, Richard Hull, The Research House for Asian Art, True Markham, Violet Yin, Wei Lin, Xinlyu Wang, Xinmo Li, Xinyu Wo, Zelene Jiang Schlosberg, Zhang Ming, Zihan Cui, Zihan Mo