BAI XIAOCI, MATHIEU BORYSEVICZ, HUANG XIAOPENG, PER HUTTNER, LOCK CHI KIT, FELIPE MUJICA, KINGSLEY NG, WEI WENG, XU TAN.
The final activity to take place at the INH-SZ project space is The Narrators, an exhibition of new commissions, one old work and one work in progress by artists from China and the wider world. Each of the participants has been invited to contribute to the exhibition, acting as narrators in the gallery space, or of the city village of Bai Shi Zhou and Shenzhen through their artwork. The photographs, installations and objects act as narrative tools, recounting characters’ lives, the history of a specific geographical area, its future and the artist’s relation to it.
Connecting the past with the present is Mathieu Borysevicz (USA). His work, telling a migrant family’s story that starts and returns to Shenzhen. Borysevicz’s work speaks of the persistent resonance in family history that even temporary residency can have. Similarly, Xu Tan’s video work depicts a man from another time singing his story of another place.
Both Loch Lo Chi Kit (HK) and Bai Xiaoci (CN) use the documentary format as a way of storytelling; their work making use of both first-hand research and photography as a means of illustrating certain characters and their stories. Huang Xiaopeng’s (CN/UK) new work acts as a pretext for the rest of the exhibition. Making use of language games and shop signs, he interrogates visitors, passers-by and the artists about the truth in their own stories and narratives.
While narrators often tell of times passed, Kingsley Ng (HK) offers stories of a time to come. His predictive work projects us into a future where Windows of The World (the theme park visible from the front of the gallery) spawns a second park, WOTWII, which is set to take over the whole of Bai Shi Zhou. Ng’s work is takes on a less humorous mood upon the realization that 70% of the city village is marked for destruction in the coming years. His work will outlast the exhibition and the project space with signage for WOTWII around the village.
Chilean artist Felipe Mujica’s project asks volunteers to make their own modernist sculptures and to document the process. The sculptures themselves become narrative devices; employed to tell a certain kind of story. Their presence outside of the gallery coupled with the documentary photographs within the space are multiple and clashing stories of dislocation, at the same time temporal, geographical and cultural. Importantly, the artist, living in America, has never visited the gallery space and never will. His artwork attempts to tell a story of a place from a distance.
Artist Weng Wei (CN) travels from Beijing to Bai Shi Zhou with her ongoing project Antimapping: Cultural Synesthesia (www.antimapping.com). Crossing the boundaries of medium and geography, Wei makes use of photography, sound, illustration and other medium to compose non-linear narrative works. Experimenting with storytelling, she will use the gallery and online space to narrate fiction from her travels from the north to Shenzhen, rehearsing a journey familiar to nearly all of Shenzhen’s migrant residents.
The exhibition will also host Per Hüttner’s (SE) new work in progress, Immanent. The artwork is comprised of 5 different films, shot in various geographical locations and numerous actors but one a single story. They are set in a world that is at once our own, but is also a world where a great change is about to take place. It will be installed in the place where it was filmed and the complete work will shown at FCAC, Shanghai in May 2010.
During the exhibition period, the gallery will be open Saturday and Sundays only. 13:00-20:00 Following the exhibition, INH-SZ will close forever. Many thanks to all who have supported and encouraged us.
