I’m just past the halfway point of my residency and can’t believe how quickly it’s going, although in other ways I feel like I’ve been here for ages. My end of residency exhibition Lost in Translation, Navigating A World Without Language, at the 501 Arts Space will take place a week on Sunday. This has crept up on me a bit. I seem to have gone from just settling into the residency to nearing the end without much in between. I do at least have three pieces of work that are complete or near completion that I feel happy to show. The exhibition will also include work by some young Chinese artists, graduates of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.
The works I am planning to exhibit are all made in response to my experience of living in Chongqing as a place where I am essentially illiterate and unable to converse with the majority of the people I meet. I have connected language to aspects of my daily life by combining everyday objects with writing implements or text and incorporating gestures and movements that, whilst purposeful, are awkward, repetitive or difficult to decipher.
I’m planning to show three works. Fast Thing, a literal translation of the Chinese word for chopsticks, is a performance piece using makeshift oversized chopsticks that I attempt to write in water with whilst walking around the space. This piece was inspired by Chinese water calligraphy, a pastime of older Chinese people that involves practicing Chinese calligraphy on concrete or paving stones in parks or public squares, and by the effect my lack of language skills has had on my ability to order food. Production Line is a split screen film of me miming the act of writing and the act of stamping words (see image). For Lazlo Biro is, as the title suggests, an ode to Lazlo Biro, inventor of the ball-point pen, a scarce if not non-existent product in the numerous well-stocked stationery shops of Chongqing. For this work I plan to carve the seat of a tiny stool, like the ones that are in my studio, into a name stamp for Mr Biro and use it to print his name several times on the wall. I read in a museum I visited here last week that the more name stamps a piece of art has the higher esteem it is held in – I’m going to make sure he has lots of them.
As well as getting ready for the exhibition, I have a workshop booked in for next Wednesday at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. I plan to use this as an opportunity to explore gestures in Chinese writing with the students. Due to the limited time I have left here, this research is likely to be something that will support me to develop the project back in the UK rather than feeding into my exhibition here.
