Near feeling of distant space

Unlike exhibitions related to paintings or sculptures, the Shanghai show is an attempt to turn pure imagination into something physical and arouse people's emotional resonance through a creative atmosphere, says Xu Chuan, one of the curators.

Liu, the books' author, is impressed by the scenarios presented at the show, including water drips, planets, severe winter and distant space, saying they are close to what he had in his mind while writing the novels.

"I am also impressed by the curators' creative, interactive and diverse ways of presenting the words from the books. I feel the words have come alive, empowered by technology and art," he adds.

There are various ways words from the books are presented in the exhibition. For example, when visitors stand in front of a large screen that looks like the books' pages, they can turn the "pages" by swinging their arms. And in front of another screen, a signature sentence from a book flows to the ground, character by character, in its original Chinese, like a running stream.

The trilogy has been published in at least 25 languages and has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Celebrity fans include former US president Barack Obama and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Yang Yuanfei, a woman born in the 1990s, who visited the exhibition, says the trilogy "provided a utopia beyond real life on Earth".