The Port and The Image: Documenting China’s Harbor Cities

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The Port and the Image: Documenting China’s Harbor Cities

 

Artists: Chen Wenjun & Jiang Yanmei, Huang Zhengwei, Li Chaoyu, Xu Hao, Yang Yuanyuan, Zheng Chuan, Zhu Lanqing

Curators:He Yining, Wang Huan

Venue: China Port Museum Temporary Exhibition Space, Ningbo (No.6 Gangbo Road, Chunxiao, Beilun District, Ningbo, Zhejiang)

Duration: 2017.10.27——2017.11.16,09:00-16:00 Every Tuesday to Sunday, Closed on Mondays

Exhibition Opening: 2017.10.21 14:00

港口与影像:行动中的中国港城影像计划

2017年10月21日——11月16日

 

参展艺术家: 陈文俊 & 江演媚 、黄臻伟、李超瑜、徐浩、杨圆圆、 郑川、朱岚清

策展人:何伊宁、王欢

 

展览地点:中国港口博物馆(浙江省宁波市北仑区春晓港博路6号)

开幕式:2017年10月21日14:00

开放时间:每周二至周日09:00-17:00,周一闭馆

 

主办方:中国港口博物馆

机构合作伙伴:BROWNIE Art Photography、Go East Project、腾讯谷雨、假杂志社、New Talents、佳作书局、瑞象馆、西西弗书店

媒体合作伙伴:《中国摄影》、《大众摄影》新媒体、《数码摄影》、《摄影之友》、《周末画报》、蜂鸟网、色影无忌、图虫网、佳友在线、影像国际、腾讯图片、澎湃市政厅、澎湃Six Tones、在艺

About the Exhibition

 

“The Port and the Image: Documenting China’s Harbor Cities” is a project organized and curated by photography researcher and curator He Yining for the China Port Museum. The Project uses photography to explore the realities of development in China’s port cities in a modern, economically integrated world. Moreover, “The Port and the Image” seeks to address the issues created between the harbor and the city caused by rapid economic development. This exhibition includes eight photographers from different backgrounds and different fields. The images included are from seven harbors and their surrounding cities (Ningbo, Quanzhou, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Dalian).

 

The seven major ports selected in this project serve as starting points. This project seeks to use photography to as a creative tool to analyze how these ports have grown: how their architecture has embraced both modernity and tradition, and how urban space, the environment, society, and culture relate to one another within them. "The Port and the Image" looks to discuss the ways in which a modern port city can be a unique vessel of history and tradition, and how the past and the present interact with one another in a contemporary context. Each of the eight photographers involved in the project have approached it from a different perspective. With their own interests and individual research as a starting point, they have formed concepts that assess both the urban area around the port, the interior beyond the coast, and the commercial and residential spaces between. In doing so, they have developed a deeper understanding of each ports unique situation. Once this has been established, each artist uses their own approach to photography (whether it is video, sound recording, or prints) to make their vision a reality.

 

Unfolding across three distinct sections --the imagined, the reappearing, and the coast-- Zheng Chuan’s "The Port of Ningbo- Fiction and Reality" takes an intricate and imaginative perspective on the transformation of Ningbo, one of Maritime Silk Road’s main ports. Zhu Lanqing in "Excavations of a Shipwreck" uses the discovery of a late Song Dynasty shipwreck on a beach nearby Quanzhou's ancient Houzhou Harbor as a starting point. Positioning herself as if she was on the excavation team, Zhu Lanqing juxtaposes two different "excavations" together to reconstruct the history of the port of Quanzhou. Chen Wenjun and Jiang Yanmei approach Guangzhou from two different angles: the former, through a series of photographs in " Wandering Through Guangzhou After 2000 years," and the later through a video titled, "Three Foreigners Doing Business in Guangzhou." In both pieces, the artists look at the role of Guangzhou as a site of historical East-West exchange and trade.

 

Li Chaoyu, in his work "A Nanjing just like Nanjing," compares the past and present of Nanjing, its history, and its role as an ancient inland port. His work discusses the reality of the problems that exist in China's current strategy towards historical tourism. In "Goods, Decades and Sense Shift" Xu Hao takes a typological approach to how business functions as regimes change. Using symbolic objects from a second-hand market, he creates a self-narrating story. Each work is set against a different background to incite different meanings in each new context. Huang Zhenwei in "Timeless Boundary – Hong Kong" creates a work about Hong Kong that integrates photography, sound samples, text, and other media. He focuses on daily life in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor, using it as a sample to create a surreal urban space that has no "dimension of time." Yang Yuanyuan, in her work, focuses on picking out the aspects of Dalian that best represent its recent historical background. Using specific sites in the city as an index, she reconstructs a story out of narrative fragments. Her work, "Dalian Mirage," uses photographs, text and video to approach the complex issues of colonial history and how the function of urban spaces change throughout different historical periods.

 

"The Port and the Image: Documenting China's Harbor Cities" is not only a visual archive of China's port cities, rather it is a dynamic series of synthesized multi-media research on the culture of port cities in a modern, globalized world. A series of related online and offline resources and events complimenting the exhibition in Ningbo will run in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, in order to enhance give a rounder perspective on ports and their culture. The photobook paired with the exhibition, published by Jiazazhi Press, will launch with the opening of the show.

 

About the Museum: The China Port Museum is located in Ningbo’s Beilun District, in Chunxiao Binhai New City. The museum’s structure spans across 40,978 square meters and opened in October of 2014. The China Port Museum was established by State Council of the People's Republic of China as a museum focused on exhibition, education, collection, research, tourism and international exchange about port culture. In doing so, the China Port Museum has become the largest international, professional, and interactive port-focused museum in China. The museum is dedicated to the history of Chinese ports and the continuation of their traditions. The museum aims to be a center for maritime culture and an important facet of the “new maritime silk road.” Through a combination of history, technology, a multitude of presentational mediums, and a high level of service, The China Port Museum invites you to set sail, and take off into the deep blue sea.

 

关于展览

 

“港口与影像:行动中的中国港城影像计划”是由中国港口博物馆委任摄影史学者、策展人何伊宁所策划、组织的展览项目,其目标在于通过摄影这一在艺术内外出入自由的实践来探索全球经济一体化背景下中国港口地区发展的现实环境,以及港城空间关系下发展中的问题,是宁波港口文化月的重要活动之一。该展览邀请了共八位来自不同学科背景和知识结构的摄影艺术家,分别就七座港口及其城市(宁波、泉州、广州、南京、上海、香港、大连)进行实地的拍摄。

 

该项目选取上述七座重要港口城市作为切入点,尝试利用摄影作为文化生产模式的功能,去分析上述港口的现代性与历史传统在建筑、空间、生态环境以及社会和文化方面的关系, 并尝试讨论现代性的港口城市与传统交接中所表现出的地域特点,或是与历史或现代语境相关的话题。参与委任拍摄项目的八位摄影艺术家分别从自身的兴趣和当地的实际情况出发,尝试针对上述地理区域的港口、腹地、贸易空间,以及空间内所展开的人的活动进行深入挖掘,最后通过各自所擅长的摄影语言和媒介的选用(平面摄影、录像、声音装置)得以实现。

 

在《宁波港:虚拟与现实》中,郑川从虚拟、重现和海岸三个部分,针对古代海上丝绸之路三大港口之一的宁波港变迁展开了复杂而又富有想象力的创作。朱岚清所完成的《沉船发掘记》从泉州湾后渚港附近的海滩上发现一艘宋末时期的沉船出发,摄影师将自己作为沉船发掘小组的成员,在创作中将两次“发掘”并置,向观众再现了泉州港的地方史。陈文俊和江演媚在拍摄广州港的实践中分别通过图像系列《漫游两千年后的广州港》和录像《三个在广州做生意的外国人》的创作,将这座港城背后作为古今中西国际贸易港口的历史和功能连接起来。

 

李超瑜在创作《如南京一般的南京》的过程中将这座城市作为历史古都和内河枢纽港的历史与现状做出对比,将作品讨论的现实对准当下景点开发中所存在的问题。徐浩的《物件,数十年和意识的转变》是艺术家针对上海政权更迭、商业变迁的一次类型学研究,他将表征的物件作为项目自我叙述的对象,尝试在不同背景下赋予其新的意义。于此同时,黄臻伟所拍摄的《无时境——香港计划》是由摄影、声音采样、文本等材料组成的综合媒介作品。他以香港维多利亚港周边的城市日常景观为样本, 并尝试挑战摄影本体中的“时间”元素, 创造一种失去“时间维度”的城市空间的超现实状态。杨圆圆在拍摄大连港的过程中选取了该港近代史的背景,以城市中的地点为索引,贯穿来自不同时代的叙事片段。《大连幻景》以摄影、文本、录像为媒介,涉及对战争与殖民历史的复杂性,以及城市空间在不同时期其功能与属性的转变。

 

“港口与影像:行动中的中国港城影像计划”不单单是一场针对中国重要港口的视觉展览,它更像是一系列基于中国特定港口文化和全球化背景下的一次针对综合性港口文化研究的实践。配合展览的一系列线下及线上活动即将在北京、上海、广州和宁波陆续展开,以增进大众对港口及港口文化的理解。展览画册由假杂志社编辑出版,将于展览开幕同期推出。

 

博物馆简介:中国港口博物馆位于浙江省宁波市北仑区春晓滨海新城,建筑面积40978平方米,于2014年10月建成开馆。中国港口博物馆由国务院批准命名,定位以港口文化为主题,集展示、教育、收藏、科研、旅游、国际交流等功能于一体,体现国际性、专业性、互动性的我国规模最大的港口专题博物馆,成为挖掘港口历史,传承港口文化、传播海洋文明的重要基地,成为新世纪海上丝绸之路的重要文化支点。以文物藏品贯通古今,以现代科技展示成果,以丰富活动传播能量,以优质服务吸引民众,中国港口博物馆邀您同行,扬帆起航,驶向深蓝!

 

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