Xiaofang Global Universe Bank

Xiaofang Global Universe Bank is an immersive art exhibition centered on a "future value system". Rooted in artist Hu Yinping's decade-long social practice under the HUXIAOFANG brand, the exhibition translates the undervalued craft of knitting by rural women into a perceptible, tangible, and exchangeable “universe currency". Through a fictional banking system, it constructs a future world in which value, identity, and creativity are reimagined.

The exhibition is grounded in a reflection on how value is defined. As digital currencies, algorithms, and AI continuously reshape social structures, the artist invites women from her hometown to crochet objects—currency for the virtual world—redefining the visual language of a future economy through the soft medium of yarn. Unlike conventional one-way exhibitions, this project adopts an open, participatory art production mechanism that encourages the audience to co-create with the artist and knitters, forming a dynamic value system.

The exhibition transforms the "bank" into a spatial system for value narratives. The Landing Hall, Super Terminal, and Treasure Vault correspond to the entry, circulation, and deposition of value, coupled with conceptual rules such as "different nations" and "stellar identities", immersing visitors in a complete fictional universe. The exhibition space thus evolves into an interactive medium that connects the artist, the knitters, and the audience.

A spatial strategy of "futuristic institution × handmade warmth" is employed. The Landing Hall features a star terminal as the gateway to the virtual world; the Super Terminal displays currencies from multiple nations, manifesting the knitters' imaginations of technology, machinery, reading, and cyber culture; the Treasure Vault presents the works in a reverent manner to emphasize the value of handcrafts. The overall visitor journey unfolds as "exploration—understanding—resonance", creating a tension between technology and craftsmanship, virtuality and reality.

More than an exhibition, this project is a translation from labor to currency, and from lived experience to cosmic imagination. Through the synergy of space, material, and narrative, it rethinks the relationship between labor and value. By responding to the anxieties of the technological age with the warmth of handcraft, it brings overlooked creativity back into visibility and recognition.