Yunnan-Vietnam Female Artists Exchange Project

Yunnan-Vietnam Female Artists Exchange Project

Curator: Liu Lifen, Wang Han
Critic: Long Yimei
Opening: 20:00, Sepetmber.20, 2008
Duration: September 20- October 20, 2008
Add: YUNART Gallery, 16 East Cuihu Road, Kunming
Tel: 5166972
Artists：Nguyen Phuong Linh, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Nguyen Thanh Mai，Ly Hoang Ly
Lei Yan, Wang Han, Shi Zhijie, He Jing, Chen Lingjie，Liu Lifen,

with support from: 翠湖会, 驼峰客栈, 九又四分之三工作室
Special thanks to：Tran Luong, Suzanne Lecht，Manuporn Luengaram, 管郁达，聂荣庆，周燕，田坚，周观琪，许涛，徐蓓，邹楠，刘志俊

Related articles:
一来（文/陶锦） (Chinese Only)
Participants Artist’s Feed Back

Albums:
Artists in Yunnan [Album]
Artists in Vietnam [Album]

“In The Course of Our Contacts…”
Yunnan-Vietnam Female Artists Exchange Progress Exhibition

In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, many famous artists moved to Yunnan, a province away from the central part of China, to set up their studios , who had been attracted by its pace of life much slower than the average. Upriver Club and Kunming Loft Art Community Motif have been established and become the stage for artists in this border area, channeling the outside information and exchanging. In resent years, more and more native artists have migrated to central cities like Beijing. Also, native female artists have been searching opportunities for communication and cooperation with the outside, and more possibilities on art in such trend.

One summer night in 2007, He Jing and we discussed how to progress individual capability of art from communication and interaction by means of group. As a result, we founded “Nine and Three Quarters Studio” in order to promote the communication and cooperation with the outside, as well as among artists, and develop the individual view of art. “Yunnan-Vietnam Female Artists Exchange Program” is the first project we made. Artists from two places are planned to an exchange, during the time, they will use local material to create their art works and share their own experiences.

We invited ten artists to the program, and they are Nguyen Phuong Linh，Nguyen Trinh Thi，Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai，Ly Hoang Ly，Lei Yan, Wang Han, Shi Zhijie, He Jing, Liu Lifen, Chen Lingjie and the critic Long Yimei.

This September, the artists from Vietnam came to Kunming and communicated with the native artists. The exhibition is about them and their individual art spirits.

This is the first stage of the program. The next will be in Vietnam in November, and we do expect more in the future.

By Liu Lifen and Wang Han (Curator)
August 23, 2008
Translation: Xu Bei

On Yunnan-Vietnam Female Artists Exchange Progress Exhibition

When we had only few ideas about Vietnam, we can just search Vietnam impressions by some montage-like scattered features. In Vietnam there are the eternity of Mekong River; the hundred-year old Yunnan-Vietnam Railway; Saigon port described by the French writer Marguerite Duras; humid and warm streets; peerlessly beautiful sceneries; tiptop love stories; Uncle Ho Chi Minh on the Vietnam Pictorial of 1970s; the belle from Gin ethnic minority; Vietnam People’s Army on the realist oil painting; the Vietnamese films Phuoc, Good Morning, Vietnam, etc.. All these flickering images in my mind remind me of the dribs and drabs of Vietnamese impressions.
“Vietnam and China, mountain by mountain, river by river, ocean to ocean…long live Ho Chi Minh, long live Mao Zedong…” written in a song.

Over the past 100 years, the two neighboring countries—-China and Vietnam had many connections. Though the two wars—- the war to resist US attack and aid Vietnam and the war between China and Vietnam, brought deep hurt to people of the two countries, these two originally intimate states share the same fate and seek common development in the new age due to the goods flow and the interlocking ethnic groups through the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, plus coincident history of international communist movement, policies of economical reform and open-up at the end of the century.

I was often asked whether I am from Korea, Japan or Vietnam when I travelled in European and American countries. The little misunderstanding from these foreigners made us a deep impression and plenty of thoughts. Asian common faces have become the unavoidable business card of the common interests. Linked mountains and rivers are mothers that created the similar historical tradition and local customs. Some of them look like the scenes from Chinese ancient times, such as ancestor worship, the faith in town gods, divination, astrology, geomancy, and traditional festivals like Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Day, Mid-autumn Day and Chung Yeung Festival. And the description of “fat, ginger, scallion and red couplets with banner, firecrackers and huge rice dumplings” on ceremonious spring festival has also pictured the daily life of Vietnamese civilians nowadays. Asian cultures have left mutual vestiges in the process of coming and going in cultural journey for thousands of years. That’s about the rules of human development, and just like Kinh women’s gown and Chinese Chi-pao in the late Qing early Republic; lacquer painting, the greatest Vietnamese art with luxurious lacquer, daily used Han dynasty’s nobles; crust bread from the century-old Vietnamese Café which located in Kunming streets and the advertisements of Vietnamese shoes in high-rise buildings today.

We could not jump to a conclusion about history, but people from these two countries are sturdy and persisting. We can see not only the confluence and affiliation of mountains and rivers, but the intense communication between people. In the Mid-Autumn Festival of 2008, female artists from Yunnan province of China and Vietnam will gather in Spring City–Kunming to seek communication and cognition. What a precious chance it is! They will communicate with no language barriers and create more art. In daily life they enjoy their new creations, chatting, picnicking and strolling. Their sister-like relation can make people feel comfortable and bring their original humility and tolerance to each other. Being immersed in such an environment, their creative inspiration can easily be aroused, which will also give us a special view of a harmonious society.

We want to give a profound proposition through searching for every bit about the intercourse of two countries based on existing so many blind points…… However, the significance of this program doesn’t exist in ideological level, but the reciprocation of female artists from two countries for the first time. What’s more is to experience culture in life after bringing out each other’s sincerity. The first time means the beginning of such a journey. In the course of frequent contact, it should be like this: the childishness of the first time shows its lovely nature, as a baby who desires to grow with happiness, freshness and frankness.

“I live in the upstream of a river, and you live in the downstream. Mutual feeling is unlimited. We drink in the same water……River flow will never stop, and we are sisters forever.” As a poem described.

Hope the implication of the poem will go through the beginning to the end of this program.

By Long Yimei (Critic)
Sep 2, 2008
Translation: Zhou Guanqi, Zou Nan