The National Silk Museum is a place where you can discover silk history through a series of ancient artifacts and displays, but most excitingly also see some real silk worms in action, eating away the mulberry leaves picked from the nearby trees. If you come close, you can touch and feel their soft white skin, it feels soft and dry, it reminds me of the texture of silk. They are quite large and majestic, standing now and then on their back legs to reach towards the sky. I can hear a monotonous munching orchestra as the eating orgy takes place under my eyes. Some of the worms have started to weave their cocoons, and I can see them looking half asleep through their thin shell. They look much calmer than the hungry ones.
Outside the museum, there is a lovely quiet man made park where school children take a break. I spot a few of them having fun with a piece of fabric that may well be a silk scarf. They play with it for ages, two children holding it while the others run underneath, screaming with joy as children do. They take it in turn to hold the cloth, and run around with it, letting it float elegantly behind them.
In the afternoon, I give a talk to some students from the Art theory, education, and aesthetic department. Their favourite artists are Monet and Van Goth and they cannot give me the name of a living artist. They knew I was coming but don’t know my work yet. They cannot access websites from outside China. The talk is set in a very formal way. I am in the middle and they are all looking at me. I decide to take them outside to do something that will challenge them a bit, so off we go in the rain. I ask one half of the students to close their eyes and the other half to lead them around the University gardens to experience it with other senses than their vision. I am not sure what they think of it, but I explain that for me art is not just about paintings or sculptures; it’s about challenging perceptions…
