INTRODUCTION
This curatorial research project invites leading artists from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, to develop new work critically in response to this era of unprecedented social, ideological and cultural transformations in ‘harmony’, through their individual memories, personal reflections and imaginations. The exhibitions were staged from 26 September to 23 November 2014, at multiple venues across Manchester, including the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), the ArtWork, the John Rylands Library, Manchester Cathedral, the National Football Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry, as the largest Chinese contemporary art exhibition in the UK to date.
THE HARMONY
The phrase Harmonious Society (Hexie shehui) has been China’s socio-economic vision, first proposed by the Chinese government in 2005. The idea changes China’s focus from economic growth to overall societal balance and this concept of ‘harmony’ was coined as an attempt to resolve or dilute the problem of social inequality and injustice. Responding to the overarching theme of the third Asia Triennial Manchester in 2014, Conflict and Compassion, China seemingly presents ‘no conflict’ but rather, a Harmonious Society, to extend a collective social imagination. This research provides the first link between China’s influential socio-economic vision and contemporary art, and develops original artistic responses to the political proposition. It attracted 36 artists from Greater China and the majority of the work was newly commissioned, in a range of forms including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video, animation, sound and performance.
LEUNG Chi Wo, Untitled (Love for Sale), 2014, switch-button, light box, aluminium engraving, newspaper pile, audio and motor system, dimensions variable
WANG Yuyang, Breathing Books, 2014, hand painted silicon books, wooden table and chair, motor, 260 x 120 x 150 cm
BEYOND THE ART SPACE
This project aimed to develop artistic and curatorial practice beyond conventional art museum and gallery spaces. The majority of the work was commissioned from China, and produced for and installed transculturally at site-specific western working venues with their existing historical, cultural and religious connotations. These venues include a library (Wang Yuyang, Young), a football museum (Yang, Liu Jianhua), a cathedral (Zheng) and outdoor spaces, such as the world’s oldest inter-city railway station (Luxury Logico), with their existing historical, cultural and religious connotations. This project questioned and re-defined the conventional ‘display of art’, and interrogated the distance between art and life. It brought to the audience not only the latest development of Chinese contemporary art, but also an understanding of recent socio-political changes in China within a global context.
WANG Yuyang, Breathing Books, 2014, hand painted silicon books, wooden table and chair, motor, 260 x 120 x 150 cm
PUBLICATION
The research was also presented in a 176-page catalogue, Harmonious Society (Manchester: Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art) edited by Jiang, with a single-authored introduction, and as a chapter contribution ‘Harmony Imagined’ in Makhoul and Mitha (eds.), Conflict and Compassion: A Paradox of Difference in Contemporary Asian Art (Manchester: Home, 2016).
