Feral Sediment centers on the milu, a rare species of deer native to China, whose survival has been mediated by captivity, diplomacy, and modern infrastructure. The exhibition originates in Yining Fei’s observations of the morphological similarities between the lining of the deer’s digestive organs and aerial views of industrialized landscapes, a coincidence that opens an inquiry into what separates wildness from domestication.

For hundreds of years, most milu roamed in a state of semi-captivity, protected in the Qing Imperial Hunting Ground. After a 1894 flood breached the imperial walls, they were hunted to the point of extinction, surviving as a species only because a small number had been transported to European zoos (and later, to an English duke’s estate). First reintroduced to China as diplomatic gifts and then scientifically bred in the 1980s, the milu, which now number in the thousands, had no unmediated wilderness to return to. They rest amid wind farm towers, cross paved roads, and wander freely into farmland.

The exhibition is curated by Sharon X. Liu, Asymmetry Curatorial Fellow.