Echo Planning Group
Echo: Greetings from Nature and The City is planned for the exhibition from the Swiss Alpine Museum, Bern's 2019 exhibition Echo: The Mountain Calls Back.
Based on the curatorial framework of the Swiss Echo Exhibition and the works of artist Christian Zander, the curatorial team of Echo: Greetings from Nature and The City, co-authored by China and Switzerland, brought the Echo Exhibition into the vision of domestic audiences, and through the collection and invitation of echo materials in the early stage of the exhibition, a series of works were collected to show the sound in the form of a prelude exhibition at the Art Pavilion of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai and the Idle Cooperative.
Sixteen echo works will be exhibited in the offline exhibition, which will "occur ( sound) in the art pavilion of the Museum of Contemporary Art and the tunnel in the community basement of the experimental nature, and the echo, a sound phenomenon that emphasizes the attributes of space, will be superimposed on the imagination of "heterogeneous space" through the reproduction of "on-site" (presence). Among all the echo works exhibited in the exhibition, there are both reflections on echoes from individuals, echo journeys belonging to individuals, and echo collections from cities and nature, through the selection and elaboration of echoes, showing the creators' further observation and reflection on the city and human state.
In the overture exhibition "Echo: Greetings from Nature and The City", the Swiss exhibited works are composed of the works of the sound artist Christian Zehnder; the domestic works are mainly sampled from the "Echo Map" public collection jointly curated by one of the organizers, The Paper, and some of them are invited to exhibit. The works cover three major groups of artists, professionals and the general public in terms of creative subjects, enriching the content of the works and expanding their diversity and possibilities.
After the museum of modern art (New York), which led the world's art trend, held a sound exhibition in 2013, sound art has now occupied a place in the expressive carriers of contemporary art. At the same time, on the other hand, hearing the voices of oneself and even one's surroundings is also a way to directly understand oneself and one's environment. As a reflection of sound, the content itself and the immediacy of occurrence enrich the cultural, scientific and spatial connotations of sound. In particular, the existence of echo requires specific physical conditions, and it is even more necessary to stop and listen to it.
The works exhibited in the overture exhibition all tighten the spatiality and materiality of the echoes - or use echoes to convey the concept of artistic creation (such as Luo Fei's "Calling Myself"), or present the results of the accidental overlapping of echoes through the recording process (such as Luo Tianrui's "The Bells of the Customs Building"), or pay attention to the visually impaired, starting from musicality, the reflected sound emitted by the documentary blind cane in various corners of the city (such as Sun Qifang's works created for the Echo Project and the ocat Shanghai Pavilion's cooperative catholic activities), Or an in-depth exploration of echoes from everyday life that takes place in urban spaces and is closely related to the public (such as Wang Yuezhou's "Ancient Lang Road Tunnels").
In this case, contrary to the general exhibition with the name of echo, which often amplifies the concept of "echo" indefinitely, the works selected in this exhibition will "limit" the echo, pay attention to the pause time required for echo and the conditions for quiet listening, and return to the dimension of emphasizing the sound itself and the space in which the sound is located. Such a "restriction", although there is a possibility of misreading that is considered too single, is actually an action that focuses on the core and returns to the original in a noisy and chaotic current environment.
"Echo", a theme that is often interpreted in the fields of Eastern and Western art, humanities and philosophy, through the works in this exhibition, whether they are creations with artistic meaning or pure sound materials, present a direct and simple state of hearing. Such an auditory experience increases the possibility of a multi-sensory experience through the aid of the exhibition design.
The art pavilion of the exhibition site is a special art space integrated into the city, surrounded by natural light, showing echoes from the city and nature, leading people to a more natural state. The community basement tunnel where the idle cooperative is located is a natural "echo factory", which strengthens people's experience of echo.
The "Echo: Greetings from Nature and the City" overture exhibition presents the exploration and practice of the three aspects of venue, creator and curatorial exhibition, hoping to further open up the audience's (listeners') feelings about the sound environment of the city and nature. We also look forward to attracting more creators and planners to participate, so that the echo of the echo continues to radiate and occur in different attributes of natural and urban space. We hope that in the post-pandemic era, people can connect and greet each other again through echoes.
Poster for the exhibition Echoes: Greetings from Nature and The City. Design: Feng Bingxuan
Overture exhibition of Echoes: Greetings from Nature and The City
Opening: Saturday, April 24, 2021, 5:30 p.m. Art Pavilion at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai
Duration: Sunday, April 25, 2021 to Sunday, June 6, 2021
Exhibition Venue:
Venue: Moca pavilion, Art Pavilion, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai (Gate 7 of People's Park, No. 231 Nanjing West Road). Opening hours: Monday to Sunday 10:00-21:30)
Sub-site: "Idle Down Cooperative" Area B Tunnel (Former underground air raid shelter in front of No. 25, Lane 700, Xianxia Road, Changning District, Shanghai. Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00)
Participating Artists/Individuals:
Christian zehnder
Rofe
Terence lloren
Sun Qifang
Wang Yuezhou
Yuan Jing
Miss Explosive
Host:
Swiss Mountain Museum
The Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai Foundation
The Paper
Shanghai Didehou Cultural Laboratory
Assisted:
Idle down cooperatives
Co-curators: Beat Hächler, Zhu Jirong
Assistant Curator: Shen Jianwen
Planning consultants: Sun Wenqian, Xu Qianhe, Shi Hantao, Yin Yi
Working team: Yuan Jing, Lin Yixian, Yang Yang, Huang Junyi, Feng Bingxuan
Academic support institutions: Sound Laboratory of Tongji University, Sound Laboratory of Zhejiang University
Academic advisors: Shen Xueman, Zhang Shuming, Wang Jing
Acknowledgements: Consulate General of Switzerland in Shanghai, Swiss Cultural Foundation, Swissnex China Swiss Science and Technology Cultural Center, One Plus One Disabled Charity Group, Golden Blind Cane Self-Reliance Life, Big Fish Construction, Nahang Culture, ocat Shanghai Pavilion, Ear Listening Network, Shanghai New Golden Moment Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd., Dong Sheng Photography Studio
Editor-in-charge: Shen Jianwen
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang