Rivers Qinnan Zhu

Rivers Qinnan Zhu: Thread’s Return along the Equinox

Opening Reception: Friday, August 1, 2025, 5-8pm

I come from a lineage of four generations of female artisans, with a strong tradition of lace-making in Xiaoshan, China. Lace, with its intricate yet fragile structure, carries a tension between visibility and absence, labor and ornamentation, history and transformation. Lace-making is not just about preserving techniques; it’s about understanding them as shifting, unstable, and deeply connected to the people who practice them.

Thread’s Return along the Equinox draws from the most elemental act in lace-making: the looping of a single thread. A loop does not simply repeat—it returns in order to continue. This circular rhythm echoes the dual life of rural women: working the fields by day, making lace by night. These alternating modes of labor—earth and hand, public and private—are woven into the fabric of shared memory and survival. The equinox is not the subject but the structure of the work. A moment of balance between light and dark that reflects a cyclical conception of time, where dyed threads and woven deviations reflect a tension between order and disruption.

Thread’s Return along the Equinox asks how traditions continue— by preserving sameness or through adaptation? Lace becomes a way of holding time, of returning through making.

• Exhibition dates: August 1-29, 2025

• Gallery hours: Thurs – Fri 2-6pm, Sat – Sun 12-4 pm

This program is supported by a grant from the Athena Foundation.