The river: one of the significant elements in the relationship between mountain and water (shanshui). It also so aptly symbolizes the myriad thoughts and feelings passing through the human mind, our ability to experience, forget, remember and imagine.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Curated by French Curator Victoria Jonathan, Go With the Flow presents the works of photography and video from five artists —— Zhuang Hui, Chen Qiulin, Michael Cherney, Sui Taca, Cheng Xinhao from 29th of March to 23rd of June, 2024 in Fotografiska Shanghai.

What the five artists in this exhibition have in common is their use of the photographic image to capture a river landscape in the China of the last thirty years, while referring to past literary works - whether poets who celebrated the landscapes of the Three Gorges, the traditional opera Farewell My Concubine, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Book of Odes, or a Yunnan folk song. Through photography, they all bear witness to the transformations of the landscape in recent decades, between realism and poetry, between the representation of the river and the exploration of their own subjectivity.

Photography enables humans to speak of both past and present times. The images the five artists create, while referencing their own tradition of landscape representation in art and literature, also echo contemporary global concerns about the issues posed by man's impact on the environment in the process of industrialization and globalization. Between individuals and the vastness of time and space, "Go With the Flow" explores the changes in the landscape over the past few decades through different perspectives and provides us with space to think about the future.

ABOUT CURATOR

Victoria Jonathan (born 1985 in Paris) is a French curator and the co-founder of the Paris and Beijing-based art consultancy Doors. She co-directed the Jimei x Arles photography festival in Xiamen (2017-2019), where she created the first prize for women photographers in China. She is particularly interested in the link between art and collective memory.

ABOUT ARTISTS

Zhuang Hui (born 1963 in Gansu province) is a conceptual artist who mainly expresses himself through performance, photography and installation. Most of his works, although they take a variety of forms and media, stage interventions in real places and events and question the role of the individual in society.

Chen Qiulin (born 1975 in Hubei province) expresses herself through performance, dance, installation, photography, video and sculpture. Her uniquely staged performances explore the feelings and capacity to adapt of human beings living in a society in upheaval, as well as the conflict between traditional and contemporary culture.

Michael Cherney (born 1969 in New York), has lived in Beijing since 1991. A self-taught photographer and calligrapher, his work is part of the Chinese aesthetic tradition.

Sui Taca (born 1984 in Qingdao) studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing) and the Rochester Institute of Technology (United States). In his twenties, Sui Taca spent a whole year studying the Book of Odes (Shijing), the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry. Sui's works follow the elliptical nature of the poems: his images seem suspended in a strange expectation.

Cheng Xinhao (born 1985 in Yunnan province) received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Peking University in 2013. Cheng’s works are usually based on long-term field studies, centering around his hometown in Yunnan Province. With videos, installations, photographs and words, he personally investigates the polyphonic relationships between logic, discussions, knowledge, and the part that nature, society, and history play within them.