I will be undertaking a residency at 501 Artspace, Chongqing, China during February and March. 501 Artspace is a large independent artist led studio group and art gallery. There are approximately 80 artists working from the studios and they are in the process of expanding and incorporating other studios and galleries in the local area. This blog will document the development of my work and my experiences during this activity.
Friend’s of Yan Yan
Zheng Li is doing a residency at Quad, Derby.
http://www.derbyquad.co.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/ar…
Yingmei Duan. Marina Abramovic Presents..The Whitworth Art Gallery.
She is naked and walking slowly around the space. She pauses between each step and sways gently. I watch her move and hear her breathing as she walks towards me. She touches her breasts. Her eyes are closed and I am looking at her. I notice there are people watching her and keeping their distance. A man walks slowly into the room and pauses close to her. I watch her walk slowly towards him. She passing around him, touching her breasts and breathing. She finally passes him and he walks away from her. She slowly walks towards me, swaying. It is as if she can sense me. I am frozen. I think about leaving but my feet are determined to stay put. I want to know what is going to happen. She gets closer to me and it is too late to move. I can feel every eye in the gallery turn towards us. She is very close to my body now and for a moment I don’t know where to look. My heart is beating very fast. I close my eyes and concentrate on her movements and her breathing. Before she leaves me she pushes her body into mine. I am surprised and at first I am worried that I have done something wrong. She walks off slowly pausing between each step and sways. I pause for a moment and think about what just happened, resume then walk away.
Yingmei Duan performed at the Vital festival at Chinese Arts Centre in 2006 and 2007. http://www.vitalfestival.org/index.html
2 days before departure
Enjoying spring Chicken on South Mountain surrounded by cherry blossom and Bonsai trees.
This is Chen. She is very talented. She is a musician, artist and for a living works on the radio playing the latest trends in music. She is also very good at operatic singing and classical dancing. Later that evening she demonstrated this to me and got me to join in after a stomach filling, of sadly, my final hotpot. Well I’m not one for saying no. She is truly inspiring!
Long swaying grass, throwing stones, jumping in the sand, drinking tea, playing cards, tickling our noses with rolled up tissue to make us sneeze, holding hands, the city lights and music from all over the world filling our ears.
Celebrating my exhibition.
Performance
I am a visual artist working mainly in performance and drawing.Â
