Chinese Arts Centre recently held a talk relating to the Liberation exhibition here at the Centre. We would like to thank all the guest speakers and participants who attended and created interesting topics and debates to ponder upon within the realms of social media, on-line networking and the very timely issue of freedom vs security of creating on-line identities. We will shortly be posting some short video clips of the days talk for everyone to check out – so please check back soon!
Archive for the 'General News' Category
As part of our upcoming ‘Liberation’ exhibition, one of the participating artists, Brendan Fan, would like the audience to ‘befriend’ his on-line discussion via Facebook. The artist will be working on the site through out the course of the exhibition, creating on-line debates about the use and limitations of on-line social media. Furthermore the artist will be offering the public to swap the gallery space setting for their own living room, allowing them to view the preview live and on-line via Facebook. So whether you wish to attend the preview at our Centre, or simply view it from the comfort of your own sofa, befriending Brendan will allow you to keep up to date with all the debates relating to the show, and actively participate by leaving your own questions and comments via the social media sight we are all so familiar with.
To befriend Brendan please follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Liberation-Chinese-Arts-Centre/126052364083114
Negotiable Values
Date: 5 June to 18 June 2010
Developed out of a dialogue with Yan Yan, Director of 501 Arts Space, the exhibition brings together artists’ works which explore the notion of advancement and raises questions about the price of progress. What has been lost in the pursuit of a better life? How have ethical and moral dilemmas been resolved or compromised?
Having been exhibited at Chinese Arts Centre at the beginning of the year, the exhibition is travelling to Chongqing China with an addition of new artists from Chongqing. The exhibition will feature: Conroy/ Sanderson, Gordon Cheung, He Chengyao, Li Cao, Li xiaojing, Jonathan Baldock, Rachel Goodyear, Wang Jun, Yang zhichao, Zheng Li.
During Eastman Cheng’s Breathe Residency with us, the artist will be working with a local Cheetham Hill women’s group, to create soft sculptural pieces based around the women’s views about the city they live in.
Eastman will be working alongside a number of local artists and students throughout June, and the works created in the workshops will be exhibited as part of the Asia Triennial Manchester next September. These workshops are just the first phase of three trailblazer projects that will be taking place between now and the 2011 festival.
The project aims to create opportunities for local Asian communities to share ideas and skills with both local and international artists, and looks set to result in a series of wonderful collaborative works.
Over the next month Chinese Arts Centre’s Programme Coordinator, Liz Wewiora, will be heading to the National Degree Shows across the U.K and Liz has already been to see the Slade School of Art BA degree show. There are a variety of opportunities at Chinese Arts Centre for recent art graduates of Chinese Descent, including our First Step Showcase and our two week Whisper Residency. If you think you may be interested then please do contact us and let our programme coordinator know which Art School you will be exhibiting in so she can keep an eye out for your work.
Late Night Opening 28th May
Our late night opening in May will coincide with Tasha Whittle’s artist reception evening. Feel free to come along on the 28th May from 6 till 8pm, where you can talk with the artist and listen to the music she listens to whilst creating work.
The successful professional development programme, Writers’ Pathway’, has taken 11 writers of Chinese descent on a journey over the past 10 weeks, that will culminate in a showcase of their writing work on the 28th May at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton. The participants taking part in Writers’ Pathway will work with actors and directors to realise their work on stage in front of invited guest audience. This is a very exciting occasion for all the participants, tutors and our partners at the University of Bolton and will give us the opportunity to hear new and emerging writing talent in poetry, prose and drama.
The Writers’ Pathway programme will continue on Saturday 29th May with a series of professional practice workshops, taking place at the Chinese Arts Centre. Participants will have the opportunity to listen to and engage with leading practitioners and agencies from the writing sector.
Anyone interested in attending this session and developing their creative writing skills should contact Rebecca Albrow – r.a.albrow@bolton.ac.uk for further information.
12 May -21 August 2010
Open Studio Thursday 19 August 2010
Eastman Cheng is curious about how objects are used and consumed in society, “observing objects, I can see people’s lives. I re-create objects through observing objects”. Her furniture-sculptures and installations, often incorporating existing objects, are her way of recording visual experiences and her own making process.
During her residency at Chinese Arts Centre, Eastman will observe, analyse and create ‘objects’ from the perspective of a foreigner. The residency will provide her with the opportunity to learn skills from local practitioners and make new works. In particular, she will be working with the local design and craft centre residents to learn jewellery design.
The ‘objects’ created will become a record of Eastman’s personal impressions of Manchester. They will be influenced by British culture, particularly in the form of local fashions and commodities. Based upon objects she finds in Manchester, these new hybrid sculptural works will incorporate the objects’ original history and purpose. Eastman is planning to ask members of the public to borrow her sculptural works and make use of them in their homes, before photographing them in situ.
During her residency Eastman will be running a series of workshops with Manchester Art Gallery as a trailblazer to the Asia Triennial Manchester in 2011 and taking part in Future Everything.
28 April – 9 May 2010
Within her films, Cindie Gottlieb-Cheung scrutinizes the broader aesthetic relationship between object and gesture. Her work is drawn from her interest in the historical trajectories of the representation of women in lens-based media which is presented through sculptural interventions within her films.
 |
By appropriating the choreographed forms of imagery that have been prevalent in cinema and popular culture, Cindie creates spaces or worlds, which continually fluctuate between the familiar and unfamiliar, and likewise, the awkward and the attractive. Through pastiche, the films attempt to expose their own constructed operations which identifies and separates the work from the very imagery it mimics. She is interested in the way in which representation, meaning and desire intertwines, creating gaps and links between our personal understanding of fiction and reality and also our fixed expectations of how narratives unfold.
During her residency at Chinese Arts Centre, Cindie will focus on accumulating visual research through the use of video and photography. Her investigations will function as the protagonist in a larger video installation exploring clichéd female allusions in the moving image.
Artist: anothermountainman (Stanley Wong)
Preview Night: Thursday, 15th April 2010
Exhibition Dates: 16th April – 12th June 2010
Chinese Arts Centre is delighted to present anothermountainman’s first solo photography exhibition in the UK, Lan Wei / Decaying End.
The exhibition features a number of haunting large-scale photographic prints of abandoned, incomplete building projects from across Asia.
Following the opening of its doors to foreign investment in China in the 1980s there was frenzied investment in real estate, which was exposed to corruption and that led to an eventual collapse of the property market in the late 1990s. When the bubble burst there were huge numbers of building projects that were abandoned and left unfinished. In 1998, in Hainan alone, a combined floor space of 16.3 million square meters were aborted or left unfinished. This wave of abortive building construction spread across other Asian cities that also experienced meteoric economic growth and collapse. The photographs in the exhibition were taken in China, Thailand, Cambodia, Turkey and Singapore.
The term ‘lan wei’ was coined in reference to these aborted building projects, ‘lan’ meaning ‘decaying’ and ‘wei’ as ‘the ending’. ‘Lan wei’ implies a not just unfinished but also something is that is long, drawn out and for whatever reason suspended between completion and destruction. anothermountainman’s images attempt to capture the relics of this mad ‘gold rush’ and, at the same time, reflect how, throughout the years, ‘lan wei’ has manifested not only in building projects but also in all aspects of life.
Abortive building projects are the ‘fruits’ of two to three decades of futile chasing after opportunities desires and dreams in a liberated society, at a time of seemingly limitless economic expansion. Buildings can be aborted, so can projects, plans and hopes. In anothermountainman’s images buildings loom empty and abandoned, but far from being literal documentary images they are also sites where captivating and mysterious scenes are staged. The scenes of figures positioned amidst a few of their possessions evoke narratives of dreams and aspirations which like the buildings have been abandoned.
The images have particular resonance in the current economic climate where the presence of half finished buildings can be witnessed in many cities across the UK.
