Guest curator Mengyao Xia: wants to strengthen "aesthetic democracy" in an AI-mediated image culture

Mengyao Xia is researching what happens to our aesthetic judgment when algorithms determine which images we see. As a guest curator at the Bodø City Museum, she was able to translate the theory into a real exhibition space for the first time.

Mengyao Xia is a PhD candidate in social design at Kyushu University in Japan. She investigates how artificial intelligence and algorithmic image culture affect people's aesthetic experiences, and what methods can give people greater awareness and agency.

The contact with the Nordlandsmuseet arose when department head Marija Griniuk was a visiting researcher at Kyushu University in November 2025. There she presented the museum and the projects she is working on. Xia took a particular interest in the project related to Hans Ragnar Mathisen, and came to Bodø as a guest curator.

During her stay, Xia was responsible for the map room in the exhibition. She worked practically with map material related to Mathisen, which she describes as a meeting between theory and practice.

– Before, I've done curatorial things very theoretically, writing texts and looking at what others are doing. Here, for the first time, I got to put on an exhibition in a real space, says Xia.

The work was both inspiring and demanding. The maps contain place names and terms in Sami, and Xia spent time familiarizing herself with the material.

– The terms on the maps are not English, not even Norwegian, they are in their own language. In the first few days I did research, almost word for word, she says.

The work opened up reflections on marginalized groups and identity, themes that are also close to her own research.

Mengyao Xia. Photo: private

Workshop with paper and hands

As part of her stay, Xia conducted a paper sculpture workshop. The workshop stems from her interest in participatory and material-based methods: what happens when people create something physical, while at the same time being surrounded by AI-generated images and content sorted by algorithms they do not control?

“We are very exposed to algorithmic curation. Information and images are promoted by systems you cannot control, and that can affect your aesthetic experience,” she says.

The project is not about being against artificial intelligence, but about awareness.

“Even if you don't think you're influenced, you might still be. It's about awareness, so people can shape their own aesthetics,” says Xia.

Urban space as a curriculum

The stay in Norway was also Xia's first trip to Europe. She visited museums and exhibitions in several cities, and describes urban spaces and architecture as part of the learning experience.

– It feels like the entire urban space is teaching you design and aesthetics, she says.

She links this to questions about the role that aesthetic experiences and cultural institutions can play in society and education, and to the core of her own research: that all people have the right to shape their own aesthetic consciousness.