Wang Jun open studio
When I was in China I met the artist Wang Jun who has a studio at 501 Artspace http://yyyiii.blogcn.com/index.shtml#. He is now the artist in resident at the Chinese Arts Centre and he has been here for two months the residency will culminate in an open studio show in which he has sent out invitations to artists to respond to his work. His concept for the open studio project is the ‘Paper, scissor, stone’ game and he has made a rock inspired piece which I went and had a look at last week. This is a new way of making work for me and I wasn’t really sure what to do although Wang Jun asked me if I wanted to interview him about his residency. This is something I started when I was in China I recorded discussions with Chinese artists who have made work abroad as a way of creating dialogue and learning about artists working internationally, although it is my intention to publish them. On Saturday I interviewed Wang Jun and Ying Ying translated for us I found it interesting how he has constructed this process, which I feel has similarities with curating. I asked questions such as how has he found living in Manchester, what has he personally learnt, and how he plans to pull all the submitted work together for his open studio. Wang Jun suggested that the audio discussion could be an exhibition piece with the headphones hanging from the ceiling for people to listen to. Reflecting on this idea of the ‘Paper, scissor, stone’ game I have been looking through some found images and I was particularly struck by an illustration of how a prism works in the photography process. When I look at this image I think of Wang Jun projecting himself through a rock shape around a space. Wang Jun open studio preview is this Thursday, 15th April at 6pm at the Chinese Arts Centre, Thomas Street, Manchester.
