A new exhibition at Para Site, a contemporary art space in Hong Kong, responds to the bleak premise that “the air … will one day be underwater,” as the co-curators, Alvin Li and Junyuan Feng, put it. A collaboration with UCC Center for Contemporary Art, China’s preeminent contemporary art institution, the show “Liquid Ground” coheres around the motif of islands. While some works highlight the perils of machines and systems that sap the earth of natural resources, others look back to sea myths to remember a pre-industrial planet. All the pieces plea for us to consider the environmental destruction that we, as humans, are causing. —J.D.