In June-July 2011 I spent two months in Beijing as part in the Huantie Art City Artist in Residence program through 24HR Art & Asia Link.
Being a regional artist based in Darwin, it was an amazing experience just to be exposed to the vast, incredibly vibrant and at times overwhelming art scene in a city like Beijing.
Everyone's experience in a residency is completely different. I didn't have an agenda when I was there & simply enjoyed the 2 months of studio time with the aim of beginning the development process of a new body of work. To just let the city itself, its people and culture to wash over me was an important part of my process. The studio felt very isolated at first but it's so close to 798 & Chao Chang Di art districts, being a 5minute bike ride from those areas was enough for me. Every now & then I'd get a bit of cabin fever & have to remind myself that I was actually in Beijing! So I'd head out to see a monastery or temple or both in a beautiful park. After a while the perceived isolation of the studio location became a blessing, as Huantie Art City is probably one of the quietest areas in all of Beijing & a great place to work.
Being disposed to hanging out in the studio, cooking a lot at home was the order of the day. Early on in my stay there I went for a bike ride to clear my head & see what was around us & happened across a nearby village/town with a fantastic fresh produce market and delicious street food in the mornings and evenings for snacks. This town, Hei Chao, was a noisy, smelly and refreshing discovery to the antiseptic lack of sound and movement in Huantie Art City but the contrast of the haves and have nots was startling and disturbing to say the least. While people queued at night with large kettles to get their hot water not 500 metres away is a new polo club being built along side a retirement village for the super rich complete with swimming pool, golf course and guards out the front to keep out the riff raff. Such are the anomalies in Beijing, every time I walked out of the gate of the residency the place blew my mind.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the residency. I was challenged in so many ways, and as is the way with any international residencies challenged in the most unexpected manner. In 2004 I spent a year in China as an English teacher in Guangdong province so didn't feel too overwhelmed culturally but the art scene was incredibly overwhelming for me and greatly influenced my work.
Among the frenzied advancement towards capitalism there is a booming contemporary art scene, where artists are just as much of a product as their work and the market is king. The art, like everything else in Beijing is BIG. And there’s a lot of it. Two months of exposure to the new wealth on display, the sheer quantity of art and the levels of consumption that goes with the sudden influx of funds in Beijing left me with sensory overload, like I’d eaten too much and needed to lie down to digest but what I’d just consumed was sticking in my throat. I didn’t feel so good. So, naturally I felt the need to pull back, lighten the palette and try to counter-balance too much with what might be too little.
(excerpt from artist statement for Banquet exhibition).
This experience has culminated in a solo exhibition Banquet at 24HR Art, Darwin, 10 February -10 March 2012.
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