Lily: Until We Touch Our Emotional Quadrant (百合——直到觸及我們的情感象限)

"Yuri" (百合) originated in the Japanese subcultural context of the 1970s, initially referring to manga creations themed around emotions between women. With the development of visual culture, the narrative gradually permeated broader popular culture media: literature, film, and television. Those intimate bonds wavering between friendship and love, through popular culture, touch upon women's emotional axes of gender and self-identity. Writer Yang Shuang-tzu (楊双子) advocates that "Yuri" serves as an emotional quadrant space, not a unidirectional love or classification label, but a freely moving emotional coordinate, and also a way of observing, imagining, and projecting relationships.

The emotion of "a woman desiring another woman" did not begin solely with the term "Yuri." Looking across East Asian history, early Taiwanese indigenous traditions such as the Atayal (泰雅族) legend of the "Women's Society" (Temahahoi), folk Taiwanese Opera (歌仔戲), and performance traditions centered on "all-female" casts that captivated women—such as Japan's Takarazuka Revue (寶塚歌劇團) and Korea's Women's National Theater (韓國女性國劇)—have long recorded, in their own forms, the emotions, gazes, and projections of subject and object in desire between women. In this exhibition, "Yuri" is not defined as a specific relationship but rather expands the imagination of emotion and gender. It no longer only discusses female same-sex love or desire, but speaks of a soft encounter, a way of seeing that resists homophobia, loosens categories, and rewrites intimacy. In this sense, the exhibition explores "Yuri"—how it opens up a cultural quadrant and life experience that cannot be fully interpreted, one that is open and belongs solely to the female subject in contemporary times.

This exhibition invites nine groups of artists from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Canada, starting from popular culture media such as film and performance, combined with contemporary art creation and a manga co-creation project, to observe how "Yuri" is written, understood, and recreated within cultural contexts, further discussing how women become emotional mirrors and vessels for bodily experience for one another. It attempts to combine these cross-regional and cross-generational historical and cultural slices, popular culture, and emotional experiences, depicting how women grow, coexist, and respond to each other, unfolding a sensual experience with Yuri narrative qualities. It further extends "Yuri" to the contemporary level—considering how women create their own spaces and relationships within social, bodily, and political realities.

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Curators: Wang Yung-lin (王咏琳), Lin Ying-ying (林映穎)
Participating Artists: Wang Liang-yin (王亮尹), Minako Nishiyama (西山美奈子), Petra Totten (佩特拉．托頓), Li Ao-sen (李奧森), Lin An-chi (林安琪) Ciwas Tahos, Huang Hai-hsin (黃海欣), Liu Wen-hsuan (劉文瑄), Jung Eun-young (鄭恩瑛) siren eun young jung, Our Shame (凹與山) x Yi Feng Comic Society (沂風漫社)
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Exhibition Information
Exhibition Name: Lily: Until We Touch Our Emotional Quadrant (百合——直到觸及我們的情感象限)
Exhibition Dates: May 26, 2026 – August 2, 2026
Main Venue: Hsinchu City Art Museum (新竹市美術館), No. 116, Zhongyang Road, Hsinchu City (9:00-17:00, closed Mondays)
Satellite Venue: UP Gallery (絕版影像館), 2F, No. 47-1, Lane 53, Dongnan Road, Hsinchu City (10:00-18:00, closed Sundays and Mondays)
Organizer: Hsinchu City Government (新竹市政府)
Undertaker: Hsinchu City Cultural Affairs Bureau (新竹市文化局), Hsinchu City Art Museum (新竹市美術館), UP Gallery (絕版影像館)
Co-organizers: Accton Art Foundation (智邦藝術基金會), LG
Special Thanks: Ming Yang Workshop (名陽工作坊), Canadian Trade Office in Taipei (加拿大駐台北貿易辦事處)