Welcome to June! Hello to light summer evenings and some fantastic Chinese arts events – a cracking month by all accounts. Get ready for racist text installations, art in fancy dress shops, old people and animations, and opportunities to Breathe…
Contemporaneous
Chen Shaoxiong & Qiu Anxiong
Until 15 June
The next couple of weeks are your last chance to catch Contemporaneous, our current exhibition as part of Asia Triennial Manchester 08. Combining ink and animation to reflect personal experience and global concerns, Chen and Qiu’s works for Contemporaneous turn our notion of traditional Chinese ink painting on its head. Catch this captivating exhibition before it closes on 15 June.
What are you looking at?
Tsang Kin-Wah
27 June – 28 September
Preview Thursday 26 June 5.30pm – 7.30pm
Exhibition tour/Artist Talk 5.30pm – 6pm
What are you looking? – Take a step inside the gallery space at Chinese Arts Centre from 26 June and that’s exactly the question you’ll ask yourself. As you walk and move around the space, glimpse of text become clear. The sound intensifies. Once discovered, the profanities and slurs running around the space scream out. As meaning becomes increasingly clear, the title becomes an aggressive confrontation. So, what are you looking at?
What are you looking at? is the first UK solo exhibition by acclaimed Hong Kong installation artist Tsang Kin-Wah. Working with text, space and sound, Tsang creates an experience that challenges our perceptions of the world and each other, focusing on racial categorisation and the influence of racist attitudes that often remain hidden. Join us for the preview of this exciting new exhibition on Thursday 26 June.
Breathe Artist in Residence
Kongkee
1 May – 29 June
Open Studio 26 – 29 June
Our current resident artist Kongkee is conducting workshops with members of Manchester’s older Cantonese speaking community, inviting them to share their personal experiences of movement across geographies and cultures. Using their journeys, Kongkee will create a new animation exploring the migration of people and plants to be screened at Tatton Park Biennial in July.
For his open studio – opening on the same day as Tsang Kin-Wah’s exhibition – Kongkee will be showing and discussing his work in progress for Tatton Park as well as screening works including his beautiful comic animation exploring the romantic side of a fierce dragon.
CHINA INCIDENTAL (Un)familiar Territories
Headphone Walks by Yan Jun & Hitlike
Until 22 June
CHINA INCIDENTAL (Un)familiar Territories offers an experience of contemporary China through sound. Headphone walks by sound artists Yan Jun and Hitlike link locations in Manchester to sounds captured in Shanghai or Harbin to create an aural journey through busy electronics markets, temples, industrial sites and vibrant restaurent areas of urban China. Borrow a headset from Chinese Arts Centre or download the works and map from Chinese Arts Centre website.
MY CHINA NOW
Short films exploring China today
From 9 June
Capturing the prevailing mood of life in China today, MY CHINA NOW is a collection of 33 short documentaries, animations, art house films and features. The collection, which will be showing in Chinese Arts Centre Tea House, ranges from the social effects of urbanization and the fascination with China’s new wealth to skateboarding, fashion and pop culture. MY CHINA NOW presents humorous animations alongside social documentaries to celebrate the diversity of life in China today.
CHINA INCIDENTAL (Un)familiar Territories and MY CHINA NOW are part of CHINA NOW, the UK’s largest ever festival of Chinese culture.
Breathe Residency – 501 Artspace, Chongqing
Chinese Arts Centre and 501 Artspace are calling for applications to the Breathe Artists in Residence Programme, Chongqing. Open to all artists, the residencies provide successful applicants with the time to contemplate and reflect on their practice, make new works and benefit from the support of Chinese Arts Centre and 501 Artspace. For full details and how to apply email info@chinese-arts-centre.org. Deadline for applications 30 June 2008.
Breathe Residency – Chinese Arts Centre
Chinese Arts Centre’s acclaimed Breathe residencies provide the space and support to creatively breathe. Artists have 24hour access to the purpose built live/work project space at the Centre and receive the support of Chinese Arts Centre staff during the 3 month residency.
We are seeking 3 artists of Chinese descent for 2008/09 residency programme. At least one artist selected will be UK based.
For more information and how to apply email info@chinese-arts-centre.org. Deadline for applications 31 July.
Chinese arts events across the UK
As if by Magic…
House of Haynes Fancy Dress Hire
Until 7 June
Forget the white cube, As If By Magic.. presents art in the eccentric environment of a fancy dress shop. Responding to the surreal surroundings and the idea of dressing up, works by six Manchester artists, including our very own Nina Chua, will be showing amongst the costumes and props at House of Haynes on Oldham Street until 7 June. Check out the exhibition website for more information.
Running the Silk Road
The Pit, Barbican Centre
24 – 28 June
Yellow Earth Theatre Company presents Running the Silk Road, a new play by Olivier nominated writer Paul Sirett, directed and conceived by David Tsa Ka-shing. The play draws on many of the myths contained in a classic 2,000 year old Chinese text The Classic Book of the Mountains and Seas, the same text that provides the inspiration for Qiu Anxiong’s surreal ink animation currently showing at Chinese Arts Centre. In Running the Silk Road, these stories, telling of flood and drought and warning of the destruction of the Earth, are interspersed throughout the modern text and will be performed in Mandarin Chinese (with subtitles) by the spectacular, acrobatic Beijing Opera performers from China. To book or for more information visit Barbican Centre website.
Circle Three: Dance Now
Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler’s Wells
13 – 14 June
Circle Three: Dance Now showcases the results of a two-week dance exchange and the creative investigations of two exciting choreographers/dancers, Liu Qi (Deputy Artistic Director of Guangdong Modern Dance Co, China) and Anh Ngoc Nguyen (Wayne McGregor|Random Dance & Phoenix Dance Theatre, Vietnam/UK). The project is part of Chinatown Arts Space’s groundbreaking Five Circle Arts Festival – a series of contemporary exchange events in rap, film, music, contemporary dance and visual public arts. Visit Chinatown Arts Space website for more information.
Deana Lee
ARThouse Open Studios
21 – 22 & 28 – 29 June
Former PAD scheme artist Deana Lee will be showing new sculptural works at ARThouse Open Studios later this month. Lee’s meticulously handcrafted works reflect her passions for nature and are often simple organic forms combined into large installations. See Deana Lee’s website for more information.
Opportunities
Call for Submissions – plAAy Shop Art exhibitionplAAy are calling for submissions from contemporary Asian artists in Blackburn or the the surrounding area for Shop Art, an exhibition as part of Celebrate Blackburn summer street festivals. Submit an exisiting or new work for this project which will gradually fill an empty shop with artworks, transforming it into an exciting exhibition space. For full details and to apply contact Amy Cham on amy.cham@blackburn.gov.uk Deadline for applications 9 June.
And finally…
www.chinese-arts-centre.org
New website goes live!
Check out our brand spanking new website. We have been working to bring you a new comprehensive portal for all things Chinese Arts Centre. Click HERE to have little look.
