Monsters at the Crossroad: Myth, Mutation, and the Politics of Passage

“In the Great Wilderness, countless beings unlike any other dwell.” 「大荒之中，多有異人。」

          – The Classic of Mountains and Seas  山海經  (circa 4th century BCE – 2nd century CE) 

Myths across cultures speak of monsters born at the threshold: from the Hindu churning of the ocean of milk, to Mesoamerican cosmogonies of worlds birthed through divine sacrifice, to the shapeshifting hybrids of “The Classics of Mountains and Seas.” These beings defy easy categories—part god, part ghost, part exile.

“Monsters at the Crossroads” gathers three artists whose work envisions contemporary mythologies of migration, memory, and monstrous transformation. Following a debut at SPRING/BREAK New York (“Borders of Paradise: Liminal Creatures in the Floating World”), this exhibition reunites Liu Tianlian and Tiger Chengliang Cai, and welcomes Jasser Membreno into a speculative dialogue on diasporic beings.

In “Monsters at the Crossroads,” Liu Tianlian reimagines Zhong Kui’s sister’s wedding as a spectral pageant where demons perform civility and humans hesitate—subverting roles of virtue and monstrosity. Tiger Chengliang Cai swirls Hindu cosmogony into a neon “donutverse” of mythic collapse, while Jasser Membreno conjures glitchy Mesoamerican saints and Nahuales in tropical dreamscapes. Together, these artists explore the monster as a guide through diaspora, ritual, and rebirth—hybrid beings caught between paradise and punishment, scripture and survival.

Together, these artists propose monsters not as threats but as guides—embodying the flux between homeland and hostland, language and silence, heaven and hell. Drawing from the “The Classics of Mountains and Seas,” “Mahabharata,” and “Popol Vuh,” “Monsters at the Crossroads” frames border-crossing as both transformation and ritual. The exhibition is a speculative archive of thresholds—ritual, spectacle, and resistance mapped in vibrant color and mythic force.