Postopia
Ugly Duck
47-49 Tanner Street, London
22 Feb 2019-24 Feb 2019
Postopia was a show held by Uncovered Collective with a designed theme - future/ technology/ life. Participants needed to propose with a related work and would be screened to join the show. To draft a new piece with limited theme, meanwhile need to relate to my own research, I came up with the idea of using language as the subject matter to bring the change in the future to the present. Originally I intended to mimic a real language test with all the equipment and infrastructure, but given the venue limit and the practical concern, I adjusted my work into paper and audio only.
There were over 30 artists involved in this show, therefore the assignment mattered a lot. Artists were told that there would be a team to install their works as they instructed, but I insisted to see through the installation or even do it myself to make sure everything goes well. And I was glad that I kept my creed, cause I noticed there was not enough people to install all the works within a day. Therefore I stayed not only for my work, but also sent messages to other artists, and asked them to install their own works. Luckily we got all the things done at very late night.
From this show, I've learned that sometimes the person in charge doesn't really have control on things, it is necessary and also artists responsibility that artist is involved in every stage of holding a show whether there's assignment or not, especially for such a big scale exhibition.
Alibi
Furzedown Hall
5 Spalding rd, Tooting, London
12 Apr 2019 – 16 Apr 2019
Alibi is an interactive work that is designed to be teared by the viewers, and it will only be completed when people act on it. With this aim, Initially, I abandoned the insistence to exhibit it in galleries, galleries create the distance between viewers and my artwork, I wanted my art to be tasted with out burden.
The alibi will be offered in the flyer form, which is normally seen on the bulletin or walls, thus I put this piece on the bulletin of my accommodation, and it turned out buried in other ads without being noticed. I realized this piece needs to be placed in somewhere less bustled, meanwhile puts no pressure on viewers. I consulted with the manager of Furzedown Hall, to negotiate whether I can paste my work outside the public bulletin. And I got the permission to paste it on the wall of the main corridor for only two days.
With the time limit, it forced me to refine the work to encourage people to act on it, and I made it happen by only tearing one Alibi from the sheet. The sheet was used out in only one day, and this makes a great example of how to allude people do things by a letting them see the trace of someone else.
Before exhibiting "Alibi", I've tried to make people use "Postcard", I negotiated with the manager of the gym, and offered them rolls of "Postcard" to put it in the toilets. In this way, people were forced to use my work because they have no choice; the way I have people act on "Alibi" is not compulsory, and turns out more ideal than "Postcard". I realized the verb consume implies not only the destruction of objects, but also the dominance over objects. For example, if a starving kid eats a rotten food, no one would consider it as consumption behavior. The choices and the supremacy that human has is the spirit of the verb consume. Thus leaving viewers choices, to do or not to do, will be the first priority in my practice.
Case study 1 Crypt
NEULINGE
19 April 2018-22 April 20
In April of 2018, I was invited to join this unique show, Neulinge. The word “Neulinge” derived from German, meaning new comers, therefore literally all the artists were from countries outside UK. It was my first time holding a show in a cellar which has long history. We soon found out that there is a strong regional, cultural consistency and relevance in all of our works, due to our nationalities and experience of studying abroad, which suited the old cellar very well, and made the curation of works from different artists easier. By the day of curation, after we moved all of our works in, we realized that we have too much spaces to fill in. There were only 9 artists, but we got more than 8 chambers, a huge corridor and two open spaces. Though all of us managed to bring extra works to fill in, there was still a big problem of the balance in the exhibition space. And due to the strong ambiance and oppressive basement structure, small-scale art works and installations could be engulfed in such a gloomy space. To solve these problems, we came out with two methods; firstly we deliberately put large-scale art works in the inner rooms, corners and in the end of corridor, in order to manipulate the foot traffic flow of audiences and attract them into inner space or lead them to small-scale works; secondly, we strengthened the contrast of lighting, by using lampshade and more focused light, and turning of the room light to put emphasis on smaller-scale works. These two methods turned out with great result and made the works more integrated with the theme and the space.
Case study 2 Crypt
Who Will Provide?
31 Oct 2018 – 4 Nov 2018
This was my second time holding a show in Crypt, and I was excited about whether I could make improve the curation even better than previous one. In “Who Will Provide?” there were 35 artists participating in, thus it was contrary to the problem I had last time. We still had to deal with the strong ambiance and oppressive space, but because of crowded artworks, it was not appropriate to strengthen the light contrast too much, thus what we could do was to utilize the characteristics of artworks, such as scales, colors and materials to categorize and curate. At beginning we let artists to choose which chamber or area to put their works; my work for this exhibition was a documentary art in a simple, clean footage form, and I wanted audiences to concentrate on it without being distracted by other lights or art works, therefore I chose the smallest chamber in order to play my video in a theater-like circumstance. Then we started the detail curation, using large-scale works as anchors, then the smaller pieces, considering the will of artists and how this worked out the best, negotiated and over and over, then we finally made it to the installing phase. I appreciated how detail the curating was, besides how to catching viewers’ eyes and foot traffic flow, we even took audiences’ breathe, emotional movement into concern, and tried to manipulate it via looking into the visual impacts and the contents of each work. It was so good for me to have a second chance to experience a different curation process in the same place. By accomplishing this enchanting show, installation practice and experiences were improved, and had a better understanding throughout the complex curation.