Matriarchal Myth

Matriarchal Myth: A Group Exhibition Of Women Artists Between Image And Myth

curators:

Wenqi Zhang, Xinxin Li

artists:

Grace Weston, Giorgia Lisi, Khaliyesa Barbara Minishi, Peiran Wang, Shuyan

Liang, Tanja Krebs, Virginia Lupu, Yiming Zhu, Yuchen Li

The concept of “Matriarchal Myth” begins with a premise: myth is not a static cultural inheritance but a continually evolving language—one that is constantly being generated and reshaped. When myth is authored by women, it does more than introduce a new narrative perspective; it reorganizes, at a fundamental level, the ways in which bodies, identities, and nature are imagined, allowing a form of matriarchal force rooted in women’s lived experience to emerge.

This exhibition brings together nine women artists from diverse cultural backgrounds, each working with photography and moving image to allow myth to unfold between revisiting and remaking, between subversion and continuity, taking on new forms within their respective experiential and cultural contexts. Here, myth reveals itself as a mode of thought—a cognitive pathway through which female subjectivity can continually take shape and renegotiate its relation to the world.

displayed artworks

artists:

Grace Weston

Grace Weston is a Portland-based artist known for her meticulously crafted miniature tableaux. Her narrative photographs explore psychological, political, and feminist themes with a distinct conceptual voice. She has exhibited internationally and received major honors, including First Place in All About Photo Issue #46 (2025) and selection in Photolucida’s Critical Mass Top 50 (2023).

Giorgia Lisi

Giorgia Lisi is an Italian photographer based in the Netherlands, studying at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK). Her work examines the human condition and how social structures shape individuals from childhood. Drawing from folklore and historical events, she connects past narratives to present-day social issues.

Khaliyesa Barbara Minishi

Khaliyesa Minishi is a Kenyan artist whose practice spans photography, film production design, sound, and multimedia. Her long-term project The 13th Path reweaves hidden matrilineal stories and opened a transformative mythic-ecological framework. She is now developing Enchantment, a decade-long multidisciplinary cycle exploring inscendence, eco-alchemy, and mythopoetic legacies.

Peiran Wang

Peiran Wang is a transdisciplinary artist working across installation, writing, video, and collaborative practice. Engaging with planetary perspectives, emotional politics, and matriarchal imagination, she moves between languages and symbolic systems. Her work reimagines everyday life on a cosmic scale, connecting the intimate with the expansive.

Shuyan Liang

Shuyan Liang is a Chinese artist working between London and Shanghai. Her practice spans photography, lithography, collage, and installation, exploring myth, ecology, and contemporary perception. Using symbolic and mythic-surreal imagery, she reactivates forgotten narratives and draws on animistic and Eastern philosophies to reconsider human–non-human relations.

Tanja Krebs

Tanja Krebs is a Swiss photographer whose work centers on human relationships and our connection to nature. With a background in graphic design and an MA from UAL, she brings a sensitive, empathetic approach to visual storytelling, blending attentive observation with poetic imagery.

Virginia Lupu

Virginia Lupu is a Bucharest-based photographer known for her intimate portrayals of Roma witches and marginalized communities. Her projects challenge stigmatized views of Romanian witchcraft and explore power, spirituality, and female agency. In Political Dominatrix, she examines BDSM as resistance to capitalist and patriarchal structures.

Yiming Zhu

Yiming Zhu is a London-based photographic artist and RCA graduate, awarded the Metro Imaging Prize. Her work draws from cross-cultural experience to explore human–non-human relations, folk beliefs, and spiritual narratives. She has exhibited internationally and received honors including the RBSA Photography Award and Verzasca Foto Award (Finalist).

Yuchen Li (Moxi)

Yuchen Li, known as Moxi, is a London-based fashion and art photographer with degrees from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the London College of Fashion. Influenced by classical aesthetics, she creates subtle, emotionally resonant imagery that values suggestion over clarity. Her work has appeared in Vogue Italy, Pap Magazine, and international exhibitions.

curators:

Wenqi Zhang

Wenqi Zhang is a curator and distributor working across film, visual art, and cultural programming. She is the Founder and Lead Curator of Which Witch Collective (W.W), a platform for exhibitions, moving image, and performance that grew out of the Glasgow-born Which Witch Film Festival. She also serves as Co-Curator and Marketing Manager of the MINT Chinese Film Festival, the UK’s first women-led Chinese film festival. With four years of experience in the Chinese film and television industry and an MSc from the University of Glasgow, Wenqi works between London and Shanghai, focusing on feminist practices, underrepresented voices, and transnational cultural exchange.

Xinxin Li

Xinxin Li is a London-based film and art curator whose work focuses on feminist perspectives and marginalized narratives. She curates with Which Witch Collective and The Knot Collective, and has led independent projects across the UK, including in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Newcastle. Her practice centers on bringing underrepresented voices into visibility through exhibitions and film programming.

Which Witch Collective (W.W.)

Which Witch Collective (W.W.) is a London-based curatorial group that focuses on women and non-binary artists, focusing on voices that have long been silenced or overlooked.

Here, “witch” is not a symbol of occult mysticism, but a socially constructed identity, one that artists reclaim through their practices as a source of power and self-definition.

W.W. originated as the Which Witch Film Festival, held in Glasgow in 2023. It has been evolving into a cross-disciplinary curatorial platform, working with artists through exhibitions, screenings, workshops, and collective inquiry. We seek to make space for forces that remain unnamed, unseen, but nonetheless indestructible.