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'of contradiction' TRACE: Welsh Artists Residency Beijing, China to seek the remains - to activate the present - to discover the future The French artist Robert Fillou introduced the term OThe Eternal Network some decades ago. Networks are fundamental to life and the process of being and doing. The eternal Network signifies the free flow of information, energy and creative effort. Networks are fundamental to art/life practice; through networks we maintain freedom, autonomy and community. All life is meeting The networks in which performance artists function are broad and inclusive. They vary from local to global they include performance art networks, discussion groups and internet user groups to local practical networks for teaching, learning and organisation of projects. TRACE is a practical example of a local space globally connected through artists networks. A gallery that exists in a house in a deprived inner city area of Cardiff, Wales [UK] where internationally renowned artists are invited to live and work in the domestic context and to produce work for the public. The extensive knowledge acquired through active participation in global networks enables myself and members of TRACE to access the concerns of art activity at an international and intercultural level. This awareness, gleaned from meetings with artists, viewing work in different contexts, and collaborating with artist lead initiatives, provides an insight into contemporary artistic exploration. Through TRACE, the domestic and private meets the public to create an interface that brings the international and global experience to a social space in the local community. As both 'hub', conduit or catalyst TRACE fulfils a contradictory function; existing inside and outside networks, creating real or imaginary space at global and local levels. Every action is a performance of consciousness. Performance art practice over the decades has often been predicated on the notion of meetings: contact and exchange. This process has lead to international networks of artists that form fluid amalgams and manoeuvres in and around existing art systems exemplified in dominant culture. Performance artworks often identified as time based or ephemeral activities are always temporary and often influenced by the place and the time in which they occur. As such they draw our attention to the very nature and process of art making and the connection or exchange made in the moment of the encounter. The context of the encounter or the meeting draws our attention to the temporary, the ephemeral, that reality is not repeatable. Artistic practice is viewed as an evaluation of intervention in
the present moment. This moment has a context that context
derives as much from a sense of a collective history, place, and
memory as from a personal It is part of a history that places emphasis on communication via
untried ways of thinking and doing. As such these artistic practices
confer a sense The exploration of social space is integral to this practice. The artistic means of production/intervention are explored and utilised as appropriate to the issues and concerns embodied in the context. This can range from performance art [derived from the visual arts] to time based practices that are now firmly established as an interdisciplinary methodology in contemporary art practice. I see artistic practice as a continuous time based process all work being inter-related projects tend to presentthemselves. Conceptually one performance or set of interventions will lead procedurally to the next stage [or project]. Freedom of choice is implicit and work can be directed to challenging and perhaps difficult contexts. These contexts can be viewed as conceptual [or imaginary] spaces. This space is then given a physical reality by placing it in a territory. The audience is wherever the work finds itself. You come from the centre and return to the centre. The centre is wherever you are. No need to survive. The work is validated by its existence and disseminated by the imagination of present observers. Th present project OOf Contradiction¹ has been created collaboratively between TRACE, Shu Yang of Dadoa Live Art , and Beijing New Art Project. This residency is an affirmation of collaboration, meeting and exchange. Welshartists in residence at Beijing New Art Project will create new work that will be premiered at a Olive¹ event from 9th 11th Sept 2005. The event includes contributions from Chinese artists, discussions, presentations of documentation, exhibition, installation, collective programming and production. The residency comes out of a continuing dialogue between performance artists from Wales, the UK and China. Artists from both countries have been making visits and exchanges over the past few years. TRACE selected Welsh artists for inclusion in the Dadoa Live Art Festival in Beijing in 2004. In return Chinese artists selected by Shu Yang came to the UK after the success of that festival and will return again to the UK in October 2005. Shared experience,common motivation and support, has resulted in a unique set of circumstances to create an exceptional experimental exercise in freedom. My initial contact and exchange with emerging Chinese performance art began when I participated in the NIPAF performance festival in Japan in the mid-nineties. The Nippon International Performance Art festival has been responsible for helping to open up the dialogue between artists in South East Asia and the West. I was aware in the late eighties of performance work taking place in China and it's confrontational relation to Chinese social-political issues of repression and freedom. This new voice contributed to the demonstrations for democracy in it¹s most spectacular global media manifestation with the atrocities in 1989 at Tian'anmen Square. I felt a strong affinity with Chinese performance art at that time and it's identification as 'action art'; including the work of Xiamen Dada group and artists Xiao Lu and Tang Song. It was later, as a result of my NIPAF participation that I met
and became friends with Mai LiuMing and got to hear about his and
other artists experiences in the 'East Village'. These 'body artists'
had created a collective performance entitled 'To Add One More Metre
To An Unknown Mountain' in 1995 which remains one of the periods
defining moments. The I later met several active contributors to the present Chinese performance art scene in Japan in 2002. This has resulted in a deepening friendship and collaboration with artists such as Shu Yang and a respect for a new generation that includes the powerful work of Ji Sheng, Ar Chang [He Yunchang] and He Chengyao. In our present collaboration, meeting, exchange, we are asking
[again?] some fundamental questions, testing some limits, confronting
some basic human issues. As we move beyond limitations, as the 'actions'
get closer to basic Every wakeful step, every mindful act, is the direct path to awakening. Wherever you go, there you are. André Stitt, Beijing 2005 |
