meeting points and disconnects: the cultural nuances of emotional expression.

There is a little café near us – Moon – and it’s a great little space – there is not much on the menu – some tea and coffee and beer – but its a great little space to hang out in – and it has internet – really slow internet – but its been our place to get online. Pablo loves it there, as the owners love to give him things, and we tend to meet a lot of the locals and also local expats who have got lost in Chongqing. Last night we had drinks with bao lei – an artist who teaches water colour at the academy, and her partner, Jan from northen germany. He has lived here for about 12 years now – he came over on a swap with his university and found life here better and hasn’t been back. I think a lot of the western artists like the cheap studio space, cheap living easier – and the excitement of Chongqing – the place is chaos. They took us to a restaurant, – helped us order! The dishes are around 7-9 RMB each – just over a $1 Everything seems cheaper in Chongqing. If you wanted to, you could live here really cheaply. We spend about $50 a day for the three of us, but we are buying a few western products for pablo.

Jan gave as a great list of chinese food to order – also the address of oganhaus – essential to be able to get home in a cab. We are settling in – the area is fantastic, people friendly, Organhaus has been great – very welcoming, very helpful.

They are working on getting us a TV and DVD and also internet connected. I think it will take a while – but it will be great to be able to work from home.

mmm. we got back from dinner after a big day of cleaning and the power box was beeping. I asked the neighbours, and through sign language I worked out it was an ‘electricity’ card we needed. We find out the card is with another assistant who is not answering her phone – so no card, the power went off that night, – and now the following night, we are put into a hotel in Sichuan Art Academy. Its been about 30 hours now – and they say they will work it out today I think. They wanted to move us to another apartment – but after all the cleaning, I couldn’t face another clean in another apartment. Anyway, so now we are in a hotel. The bad part of this is Pablo is sleeping with us, meaning its hard to sleep – and the great part is – they have a hot shower here – steaming hot – and the shower in the apartment is just luke warm, so showering means boiling a kettle.

So far we have been in chongqing for five days, and I am yet to think about work – we have just been concentrating on the living environment, but I am already thinking time is going too quickly. We went into the city yesterday, and I just started snapping photos – people in restaurants, in the streets, hairdressers.

The area is fantastic, and the people at Organhaus a really great. We had an opening at Organhaus the day we arrived – two German artists from Dusseldorf were leaving the next day to go back to Germany. Yanshu, the director has also gone to Dusseldorf to do a residency – they do swaps with Chinese artists and German artists – but we met him briefly before he left on the flight. The following night Nikun, the curator, took us to a hot pot restaurant. A Turkish artist has just arrived – Gunes – she is here with her mother – she lives in Istanbul. The restaurant was so loud- everyone laughing, smoking, shouting, drinking and gambling throughout dinner. Pablo made some friends with the other kids, and they started running wild throughout the restaurant, entertaining the rest of the diners. At night here the streets fill with stalls cooking all sorts of things – mostly street barbeques, hot pots and noodle dishes. – and then night markets fill the street as well. The area is filled with art students. Pablo gets heaps of attention – some he handles OK and others he just hides his head until everyone disappears. But it doesn’t take long to draw a crowd here.

There is no internet in the apartment which has been strange for me – I usually have to spend a lot of time online – and everyone at organhaus doesn’t seem to start work till around 6pm – I am not sure why – but I am going to have to get my head around starting a meeting at 6pm – its usually my shut off time – where we are just thinking about feeding Pablo, and settling in for the night. However, even over the last five days – we have shifted – we are getting up around 10 am and to bed around 1am.

Gosh, its been hard to get online – and we just got lost into Shanghai. I am not sure what Shanghai was about in the end – mostly eating – Nick and Bree brought us to some great restaurants that we wouldn’t have usually gone to. We walked around a lot with mics, cameras, tripods to shoot, but no luck. We found some great barbers – one had set up shop under a highway – with a mirror and a seat. We had a friend Nick to translate for us – and we tried to throw a bit of money into the equation – but no luck – no cameras! Strange, but out of the wood work came a well dressed fellow who started asking us a lot of questions, started videoing us, and then following us for about twenty minutes. This was hard to make sense of. Was it just some intrigued person? was it some sort of secret police? The following us, and videoing us for twenty minutes was a bit disconcerting. We tried another Barber, an old man and woman – again, no luck. So who knows? Frustrating, but it was great to spend time in Shanghai.

We have been in Chongqing for five days now, Huang Jueping, Jiulongpo District, and still settling in. Chongqing is in the middle of China – a sprawling growing city of 35 million people – the biggest city in the world. It hasn’t got the feel of the metropolis of shanghai – feels a lot more provincial. We arrived Monday night from Shanghai. After hours in a cab, and the city never ended we ended up in Huang Jueping– the apartment blocks are filled full of murals and graffiti – commissioned by the government. The streets are filled full of artshops, art courses – the Sichuan Art Academy is based here. It’s a great area.

I am doing a residency with Organhaus, an organization based at 501 warehouse.It has a gallery space downstairs, and office space on the 2^nd floor. It has a few apartments available to international artists. The apartments are large – three bedrooms each, about 90 square meters, situated right behind the gallery. It’s a great set up. As we were showed the apartment, I internally cringed. There was little furniture, and all the remnants of the last people staying were everywhere – filled ashtrays, dirty sheets, mouldy coffee cups with more cigarettes in them, enough grime to think it hadn’t been cleaned for months on end. I used to be able to handle this grime when I was younger, living with uni students in Melbourne – but now, with Pablo – I freak out a bit. We did a search for clean sheets and towels – I didn’t shower for two days as I wanted to spend as little time in the bathroom as possible. I hardly moved in the bed for fear of bedbugs. Finally we realized there was no other apartment or hotel to go to, so we stocked up on cleaning chemicals and started scrubbing. A full day later, and every surface scrubbed – it’s a lot better – livable, and I don’t think I will ever qet rid of the smell that eminates from the bathroom. I am on the search for incense. We bought new pillows, some slippers, some cutlery and glasses and stocked the fridge with a bit of food. We put everything through the wash. Its amazing what a bit of cleaning does. Slowly, its started to feel like home – other than some sort of mouldy substances inside the cupboards in the kitchen (which I won’t open), and a bathroom that will always smell a bit- it’s a fine place to live. We settled in quickly despite the shaky beginning.

Got the visas – One week to get the visa, another three weeks till it runs out. What a process. The next place we do it will be chongqing.

Getting to know the city of Shanghai. Its never ending. Skyscrapers, next to alleyways filled full of markets and streetfood. A fantastic underground system that seems to effortless transport millions of people a day.

I am still managing the road system – trying to cross a road with a pram, with the green walking light flashing is an exercise of juggling. Buses, trucks, bikes, don’t look out for pedestrians at all, and come from everywhere. Apparantly they always have right of way. Yesterday, just as we began to walk accross the street, a bike comes flying at us, hits a pot hole, and then slams into a car. The bike slides accross the street with him still attached to it. I start running to help, and then Matt says ‘your crazy, you will get implicated’. We walked on. A strange feeling to walk away when someone is hurt.

OK. Plain tickets to Chongqing booked. I will start an Artist in Residency at Organhaus on the 14th of November. We are flying ‘Spring’ Airlines. Lets hope for the best.

dear tina

i will leave to Germany at 12th,so if we cant meet,Nikun who is curator of Organhaus will take care of you.when you arrive at train station ,just find taxi to our place.you can call me or Li xiaoxi ,my assistant ,and we can talk to the driver about the address in chinese. here is address in chinese, 九龙坡黄桷坪四川美术学院。also Li xiaoxi s No 0086-13452334661.

you can write to Ni kun and Li xiaoxi with [email protected]all the best yangshu

written 4th November

HI Ni kun, Yangshu and Li xiaoxi

Yangshu, it is dissapointing we will miss you! Have fun in Germany – are you going to Berlin?

I look forward to meeting Ni Kun and Li xiaoxi on the 14th November. We are flying on Spring Airlines flight 9C8867 from Shanghai Pudong International Airport to Chongqing’s Jiangbei International Airport arriving at 16.50 in the afternoon on Monday 14th November.
Do we head straight to the apartment?

As mentioned, I am travelling with my son Pablo who is 4 and my husband, Matthew. I will need an extra bed for my son as he likes to sleep on his own.

If you like, you can organise a driver to pick us up, and I can pay for the driver straight away, or if you think a taxi is easier, that is fine.

While in Chongqing, I am hoping to research more about the Professional Funeral Criers ofChongqing.

http://www.peopleforum.cn/viewthread.php?tid=103585&extra=page%3D1

or http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/a-funeral-like-no-other/article2016813/

The aim is to shoot up to eight performers (separately, not part of funeral) and then weave them together via a 8 channel video installation. I think this project will take a month or so. I think I might need access to an interpreter to do this – do you know of any?
I would also be interested in giving talks or workshops, but we can talk about that when we arrive if you like, or if you have any ideas, please send them through.

Look forward to hearing from you! My number is 8613522864391 if you would prefer to talk.
Tina Gonsalves

http://www.tinagonsalves.com

Dear Tina I am Nikun,I am very happy to meet you in Chongqing and work together in Organhaus. About your project,the girl,Professional Funeral Criers,,I konw some story about this,but I can’t sure it is same girl,,I will try to find her,maybe it is easy ,maybe no… Yes,,the taxi is easier,but if you have a lot of baggage，you need a big car,we will organise a driver to airport.. if you have any question，Plz tell….. Cheers Nikun