A DECADE OF DREAMS: LI ZHENHUA × 9MOUTH COLLECTION

TEN YEARS LIKE A DREAM — A LETTER TO THE ARTIST AND COLLECTOR

Trust and an enduring love.

What you see may be the exhibition as it appears before I have even seen it myself.

My collecting relationship with 9mouth is founded on mutual trust and a deep appreciation for each other’s work.

In 2016, I decided to give him a certain amount of money each year, and in return, he would give me some of his works. I have never even opened many of them. They are handmade by him, lying quietly inside a small suitcase for carrying photographic works.

We never set a time limit for the collection. Sometimes my income was unstable, and I had to split a year’s payment into two instalments, or delay it until the end of the year, even into the following year. He never complained.

In 2026, I said, “Our collection has reached ten years. I think this is where we should stop.”
9mouth said, “Yes. I didn’t realise how quickly the time had passed.”

I am a curator and have been collecting art since 2014, for several reasons. One of them was my involvement in Art Basel Hong Kong. Collecting is a way into art and its economic activities, and I wanted to try it for myself. Another reason was the hope that the income I earned from working in the art world could, in turn, return to the art world.

This is also why I invited 9mouth to participate in the 2026 Jimei × Arles International Photo Festival. We were both participants in the first Jimei × Arles International Photo Festival, so it feels wonderful to return to Xiamen and come together again.

I do not know whether "A Decade of Dreams" includes the works he gave me. Perhaps it does, perhaps it does not.

The works in the exhibition featuring him with his mother, as well as those featuring him with his partner Wu Xuanhua, are the result of the time they have experienced together. Other works — images printed on thermal paper, or details such as the buttons on clothes within the images — add quieter, less conspicuous traces of time.

In the end, the collection between 9mouth and me came about through an exchange of money and material objects. But at its heart is something more fundamental: mutual trust, and a sincere love for art.

Li Zhenhua
Written in Tuscany, Italy
Saturday, 26 September 2026
 

ARTIST: 9mouth

9mouth (b. 1988, Jingzhou, Hubei) currently lives and works in Beijing. Working primarily with photography and writing, he also engages with video, installation, painting, and other media. His practice has long drawn on personal experience, exploring emotion, desire, intimacy, reality and fiction, as well as the relationship between time and memory. Through photography, he also examines the possibility of the image as a form of "evidence".

Since beginning his artistic practice in 2010, 9mouth has consistently taken his own life and personal experiences as points of departure, establishing connections between everyday experience and artistic practice. His work has been presented in major exhibitions and festivals in China and internationally, including Jimei × Arles International Photo Festival, Three Shadows Photography Award, CAFAM Future Exhibition, and the Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art. He has also exhibited and undertaken artist residencies in Germany and Switzerland. In 2014, he received the Outstanding Photographer Award at the 5th Jinan International Photography Biennial, and in 2015 he was nominated for the 7th Three Shadows Photography Award.

His work is held in the collections of institutions including CAFA Art Museum and the German-Chinese Cultural Exchange Foundation. His published photobooks include "Proof", "Eroshoot", and "Menstrual".

CURATOR: Li Zhenhua

Li Zhenhua (b. 1975) works between Zurich, Berlin and Turin. He has been active in the art field since 1996, engaging in exhibition curation, artistic practice and project management. He serves as the international publisher of "Contemporary Artists" at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.

Since 2010, he has been a nominator for the Summer Academy at the Zentrum Paul Klee Bern (Switzerland), the Prix Pictet (Switzerland), the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (Hong Kong), and the Future Generation Art Prize (Ukraine). In 2014, he was a member of the international advisory board for the exhibition "Digital Revolution" at the Barbican Centre in the UK.

Since 2000, he has focused on curating and, since 2004, on dialogue with filmmakers and documentary filmmakers from China. He has been involved with CIFF since 2004. In 2015, he produced JU Anqi's film "Poet" on a Business Trip. In 2010, he curated Heat: "ZHANG Yuan", a solo exhibition in Nanjing, China. In 2007, he produced SHEN Shaomin's documentary film "I Am Chinese". From 2014 to 2025, he worked as film curator for Art Basel Hong Kong. In 2025, he served as curator of Noor Riyadh and curator for Futian District at the Glow Shenzhen Festival.

Li served as a final jury member for "Shorti" (Spain, 2003), "Napolis Film Festival" (Italy, 2006), "Transmediale 2010" (Berlin, Germany, 2009), CCAA (Beijing, China, 2012), CIFF (Nanjing, China, 2012), "Fantoche" (Switzerland, 2012), "Art Award China" (Beijing, China, 2015–2016), "2021 KCC UK × Germany Open Call" (Germany & UK, 2021), "DAAD: Fellows of the Berlin Artists-in-Residence Programme 2022" (Germany, 2021), "AI Anarchies" (2022), "Chongqing Light Art Festival" (2025), and "Shining Shanghai, Light Art Festival" (2024–2025).

Li Zhenhua has edited several artists' publications, including Zeng Zhe's "Another Place, Some Other Time" (2022), Yan Lei's "What I Like to Do" (Documenta 13, 2012), Hu Jieming's "One Hundred Years in One Minute" (2010), Feng Mengbo's "Journey to the West" (2010), and Yang Fudong's "Dawn Mist, Separation Faith" (2009). A collection of his art reviews was published under the title Text in 2013.

In 2026, he was named Curator of the Year by Asian Art 18. In 2016, he received the INNOVATION Prize from The Regional Contemporary Art Project in connection with the 3rd Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art (2015), Russia. In 2015, he was named Curator of the Year by the TANC Asia Prize in Shanghai. In 2015, he was named Curator of the Year (2014) by Art Power 100, Beijing.