It is Day 1 of the residency in Chongqing, and I have mainly used it to catch up with sleep, get to know the area, make a few trips to the supermarket and art shop for supplies.
I am very impressed with the area; as well as a little overwhelmed by the heat, noise, sound and smells of it all. After a 24hour journey, I arrived last night at 5pm Chongqing time. YanYan, the director of the 501 Artspace, kindly came to collect me from the airport, and drove us back to the studio and apartment where I am staying. The studio block is just off the busy main street of HuangJuePing, which is full of market stalls, art materials store (for the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute students), food stalls and shops for just about everything. I am initially amazed that, despite the supermarket, each shop or stall, specialising in one product or good, and that only, and seems to be thriving on it. What is available is also carefully catered for the need at that time of day. There is a small winding line on the other side of the art centre, that also has an elementary school behind its other wall. This late afternoon, when the children were leaving school, and whole group of vendors set up stalls of sweet treats, cooked meat sticks and juices that the young students could eat, as they walked up the hill home. When I returned home later, the lane was clear of bustling activity with only a few pedestrians.
Last night, YanYan showed me around the very generous sized studio space and adjacent apartment. I was surprised at the large spaces that many of the artists have, they are huge in comparison to the poxy spaces that we rent in the UK for a ridiculous cost. We walked around many of the other artists studios, and I was very pleased to see some really interesting, and ambitious work. I will post some images on later posts, once I go round again to talk to the artists in more depth. I met two of YanYan’s assistants – Shu Wen Wang and Zhi Zing Lin. They are both students at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, and will be helping me out when I need it. They were both lovely girls, with excellent english – it put me to shame!
We all went for HotPot – a Chongqing speciality, similar to Japanese Nabe, except the vegetable and meat are cooked in oil and broth, and it is very very spicy! Although apparently the one we had was mild! They are interesting flavours of chilli – much earthier and grittier than the chilli’s that we use in the West.
Afterwards, we went to have a look around the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Campus, which I revisited today to see some of their Final Degree Show. YanYan showed me around the Tank Loft Art Center, which has several galleries and studio spaces. Again, we met some really interesting artists, and I will be sure to go back and document these.
Today I have spent the day trying to catch up on some sleep, however my body is still in London time! My first stop was the supermarket, which I loved, as I adore going to food stores in other countries. The supermarket was very well staffed and very reasonable indeed – the UK have something to live up to!
This afternoon I visited some of the other art centres and galleries in the area, firstly the large HuangJuePing Art Centre which is in the complex I am staying in. As you can see from the photograph, the space is gigantic and on the scale of a aircraft hangar building. The work inside is mainly painting, as which was common in quite a few of the other gallery spaces I visited today.
I also attended the opening of the ‘Evolution’ exhibition at the 501 Art Space, and visited part of the design degree show and watched the very big budget open air fashion show! It was dumplings for tea tonight (yumyum!), an early night and onto start work tomorrow!
