nightschool

 

Seminar 6: Hu Fang, Zhang Wei & Xu Tan

Thursday June 19th, 7:30PM
Space within space within space

Vitamin Creative Space functions as an alternative working model specifically geared to the contemporary Chinese context. In order to operate independently from institutionalized funding, it is active both as an “independent” art space and as a “commercial” gallery. Vitamin Creative Space is actively challenging preconceptions by merging these two models, which traditionally are opposed strategies for supporting and presenting contemporary art, and is developing new Chinese contributions through research into both: the artistic practice and institutional organization within the new global context.

The seminar will look at the recent practice of Vitamin to explore how it is not merely a physical space, but is an attempt to create a new model for development and distribution of artist's new thinking on creativity.

Friday, June 20th, 7:30 PM
Things to do while you're alive

Accompanied by a slide show of Hu Fang’s recent pictorial collection of adverts, signs, photos from the realm of public media, Hu Fang and Zhang Wei will spontaneously generate a narration of a "life journey" and spatial transformations, outlining global surroundings we are living in and how there can be a possibility of the space for the artistic view of life: a view which proposes an alternative way of transforming reality.

Saturday, June 21st, 3 PM
Keywords School

The “Searching for Keywords” project was initialled from a series of interviews of active people in the Chinese society or people in the active Chinese area. By analyzing the content of these conversations, artist Xu Tan identified certain “keywords,” terms which shed light on values and motivations of contemporary Chinese society. “Keywords” measure the pulse of the current social climate and present an insight into the collective social consciousness of China. “Keywords” looks at connections between the individual speakers, words and the mental tendencies of the society.

In this seminar, Zhang Wei and Hu Fang will invite Xu Tan to discuss his Keywords project and introduce the idea of opening a “Keywords School,” as well as his conceptual approach, method and the larger social landscape made visible by the Keywords – a landscape of “collective consciousness” which actually frames our daily process.

 

Hu Fang, Xu Tan and Zhang Wei


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