Time to 'paws' for reflection

The exhibition also set up a salon for people to share their knowledge about cats, and tips for coexistence. What's more, a special Take Me Home stray cat adoption event is held every month during the exhibition period, sharing adoption and care information.

Cheng Pengzi, the curator of the exhibition, has been raising cats since 1991.

There's still a visible bite mark on her arm today, which was left by the first cat she raised, on the day when she returned home from a long business trip.

"The bite communicated its love and its resentment," she says.

Two years ago, Cheng's second cat, Little Tiger, got sick. The illness didn't immediately seem fatal, but the cat started losing weight. Cheng's first thought was that Little Tiger, who was 10 years old at the time, was just getting old.

The illness was only discovered when it had already progressed to the terminal stage, and Little Tiger, sadly, passed away last year. "I realized that I didn't really know or understand cats," she says with a regretful smile.

In the past two years, Cheng has been thinking about the love and connection that she has with her pets and other animal friends. The exhibition for her is like a memoir she keeps, and provides the answers to questions she harbors about the connection between pets and their owners.

Cheng notes that "cats have been imbued with various meanings in global history — mysterious, fantastical or comforting".

"The exhibition invites visitors to explore a series of intertwining concepts pertaining to cats and emotions, and to follow the historical development and evolution of the role of cats in Eastern civilization," she says.

"Through the perspectives of humans observing cats, and cats observing humans, it presents various aspects of human nature and societal life."

Wang Lei, the dean of the School of Animation and Digital Arts at the Communication University of China, who also curated the exhibition, believes that history is made up of specific individuals.

"When we observe a specific person or even a cat in a particular era, we discover a different story from a unique angle," he says.

As a leading figure in Chinese animation, the director and screenwriter hopes to perfectly express both the relationship between cats and humans, and the relationship between humans and historical culture, through the exquisite presentation of digital art.

One visitor, Wang Tebie, comments: "The exhibition is a furry love letter to cats."

The exhibition runs until Oct 8.

If you go

Monday to Friday, 10 am to 7 pm (last admission at 6:30 pm); Saturday, 10 am to 8 pm (last admission at 7:30 pm), until Oct 8.

798 Art Factory, 798 Art Zone, 4 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing.