Special Collaborative Project Within The Exhibition Camel Bells Echoing — The Farthest Place from the Sea at Beijing Minsheng Art Museum

In 2024, sound artist Xingyu Li presented The Farthest Place from the Sea as a special collaborative project within the exhibition Camel Bells Echoing — Silk Road Art Exhibition at Beijing Minsheng Art Museum.

Conceived as part of the museum’s public-space initiative Sound Tunnel, the project transformed a transitional architectural corridor into an immersive listening environment. Through spatialized sound composition, the installation sought to engage visitors in a contemporary dialogue with the historical and cultural narratives of the Silk Road.

Originally developed during the fieldwork expedition Sound Journey to the West, the work is based on recordings and improvised performances created in Xinjiang by Xingyu Li, percussionist Liu Xingxing, and local ethnic musicians. Interwoven with the ambient sounds of desert winds and shifting sands, these musical fragments form a layered sonic landscape that reflects both geographical distance and cultural continuity.

Within the installation, audiences were invited to enter a passage of sound that evoked the experience of traveling across the desert at night, guided by starlight. The corridor functioned as a temporal conduit, connecting ancient trade routes with contemporary modes of cultural exchange. Through this spatial listening experience, the work proposed music as a medium through which historical memory and present-day imagination could intersect, forming an ongoing dialogue across time.