The world is facing the worst pandemic in a hundred years and the art world is finding ways to help understand what has transpired and help inspire. The "2020+" exhibition in Beijing aims to do just that. 

A total of 15 artists from China and other countries were selected for the special multi-dimensional exhibition at the Red Brick Art Museum. 

Curator Yan Shijie said each work of art in "2020+" is the artist and the viewer's interpretation of this unprecedented year. 

"In this year 2020, as we face the pandemic, there's a lot of thinking behind the reality. We need to look ahead. We are at a crossroads. People will remember it and think how to move forward," he said. "Artists are following clues. From small spaces to the globe, there will be a splendid future. Observers can have their own dialogue with each artwork, and come to their own understanding of it."

Lin Tianmiao's "The Proliferation of Thread Winding" is one of the most impressive in this exhibition. The artist employs 15-centimeter-long industrial needles and cotton balls as materials. In this work, softness and sharpness, strength and weakness make a dramatic impact. 

Lin said she created the installation in 1995. But it's still relevant today. "Powerful work lives long. It arouses inspiration in different times and can be explained in various ways. This was a work from 26 years ago, presenting the magic of qualitative and quantitative change," Lin said. 

"Cotton balls are soft, but with over 30,000 ones spread around, the quantity is striking. The needles are the same, sharp and aggressive. But when we put 60,000 needles together, it looks like hair, visually soft and smooth. They are extremes, like the pandemic. Many catastrophes happened and it can be a new start, good or bad. It would be a new aggregation of energy," she said. 

Tao Hui's "Hello, Finale!" is comprised of nine videos. The characters in each frame have incomplete and one-sided conversations on the telephone. All the videos were shot in Kyoto, Japan. The stories narrated in Japanese were adapted from Chinese news and the artist's personal experiences.

Yang Zhenzhong traveled to more than ten countries to film nearly 1,000 people from different age groups, identities, and races. They faced his camera and said the words "I will die" in their own languages. 

In Anri Sala's "If and Only If," a garden snail slowly crawls from one end of a viola bow to the other, disturbing the subtle balance of the musician's performance. 

Song Dong created a installation called "Boundary Stele." Viewers can write on the stele. Song said, "The virus made humans suffer, and isolated them. What I advocate is boundless. In both art and life, people should be united. The world is small. We should protect our home. Ideas and free air should come back into our lives."

"The surface of the 'Boundary Stele' is made of frosted glass which is designed for writing. Viewers can write what they want and the words will soon disappear. But the expression and the ideas will remain forever. It hopes to gather different cultures and different expressions," he said. 

The exhibition runs through October.