A nice circularity has happened. Our exhibition will be held in the gallery at Ximalaya Bookshop. Ximalaya was my starting point, the first place I found by following an artist’s description in this case a map drawn by Sarah Sanders. As I approach the end of my residency it feels right that my work should culminate at Ximalaya Bookshop.
The time we’ve had to work in Chongqing has been short (less than a month), so it is both our intention to keep on working up to the date of the exhibition. Today Jessica was in Yao Bo’s studio. This is a lovely studio that Yao Bo keeps immaculately clean and tidy, she sometimes lives there and it carries a feeling of home about it. The space is filled with Yao Bo’s ceramics and paintings, some look robust and others more delicate, the placement of each work carefully considered. In the middle of the room is a large table laid out with ceramic objects that look like fragments of seashells. They are actually casts taken from deflated balloons and by the side of the table Yao Bo has constructed an ad-hoc looking structure (upturned furniture stacked together for height and bamboo poles reaching across) to enable her to cast the balloons. It will be interesting to see how Jessica responds to this space.
I placed two constructions I made earlier in the week, outside to collect rainwater and made a journey to the riverbank to collect sand.
The exhibition will open on the evening of Monday 6th of December so we have 6 days to go.
Nina Chua
30th November
