Threads Of Love EXHIBITION

August 14th - 24th 2026

Creative Asia Art Centre

Across distance, love finds a thread.

Across cultures, stories find a home.

Threads of Love explores Qixi as a living cultural tradition, continually shaped through ritual, mythology, poetry, literature, visual art and changing social values. The exhibition follows the many threads of interpretation that have gathered around Qixi over time, from women’s creativity and craftsmanship to celestial mythology, fate, communication, longing, reunion and contemporary expressions of love.

One of its earliest and most significant threads lies in Qiqiao, a tradition centred on praying for creative skill, wisdom and excellence. Young women appealed to the celestial Weaving Maid for mastery in weaving, spinning and needlework, celebrating dexterity, patience, discipline and craftsmanship. These practices elevated women’s creativity and recognised artistic skill as something worthy of aspiration, cultivation and transmission across generations.

The Weaving Maid occupies a powerful place within this history. Associated with Vega and the celestial realm, her weaving became linked with pattern, order and the heavens themselves. In this context, weaving carries meanings beyond craftsmanship, becoming a metaphor for time, memory, fate and the ways individual lives and experiences intersect within something larger.

As Qixi evolved, the story of the Weaving Maid and Cowherd became increasingly prominent. Separated by the celestial river, they are reunited through the magpie bridge, a symbol with deep associations in the tradition. Research into Qiqiao also identifies the bridge and magpies with communication between Heaven and Earth, spirit and matter, heart and head, giving the image a significance that extends beyond lovers reunion.

For Threads of Love, the magpie bridge becomes a metaphor for the exhibition itself. Just as individual magpies gather to create a passage across the celestial divide, the artists and their artworks come together to create a space of connection across cultures, generations and lived experiences. Each work carries something from artist to audience: an idea, a memory, an expression of love, an experience, a question or a fragment of cultural inheritance.

This idea reflects a broader human desire to communicate. Across speech, writing, gesture, ritual and the full breadth of artistic expression and media, people continually seek ways to make themselves seen, heard, accepted, known and understood for who we are, and the unique perspective we hold. The artwork becomes one form of message, carrying something outward in the hope that another person will receive, interpret, resonate, and respond to it.

Qixi has also travelled across cultures. Related traditions include Tanabata in Japan, through Orihime and Hikoboshi; Chilseok in Korea, through Jingnyeo and Gyeonu; and Thất Tịch in Vietnam, through Chức Nữ and Ngưu Lang. Each has developed within its own cultural context while retaining recognisable themes of celestial separation, weaving, longing and reunion.

The contemporary women artists in Threads of Love continue this process of reinterpretation through their own histories, materials, practices and cultural experiences. Their works explore memory, identity, resilience, migration, transformation, intimacy, cultural inheritance, connection and expressions of love, demonstrating how inherited stories can remain active and meaningful in the present.

The interactive installation extends the metaphor of the magpie bridge by inviting visitors to become part of it. The exchange of messages sent and received is symbolised through the oracle cards that form part of the installation, where visitors are also invited to contribute a reflection, memory, wish, personal understanding of love or celebration of women’s creativity. As these contributions accumulate, individual voices form a collective structure, echoing the magpies who gather to create passage across the celestial divide.

In this way, the exhibition becomes bridge and conversation. The artists begin the exchange through their work, audiences receive and interpret those messages through their own experiences, and the installation allows visitors to contribute something of themselves in return. Creativity becomes a means of communication across cultures, generations, experiences and the symbolic realms of Earth and Heaven, matter and spirit, head and heart.

At the centre of Threads of Love is the elevation and celebration of women’s creativity, craftsmanship, wisdom and creative excellence. Qiqiao reminds us that these qualities have been cultivated, valued and passed between generations for centuries, while the contemporary artists gathered here continue that lineage through diverse forms of artistic expression and media.

Across all of these threads runs a shared human impulse: to create, to communicate, to express love, to reach across distance and to connect.

Curated by Dr Angelina Mirabito with Dou Jin

Project Director, Sheryl Leigh

Project Lead, Scott Ross

With curatorial and exhibition support from Zic Liu and Xin Ji, Master of Arts and Cultural Management interns at the University of Melbourne