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We visited Hangzhou last weekend in a perfect time. 18 hours train ride from Guangzhou on Friday afternoon, we arrived in Hangzhou on a Saturday morning. It was rainy the first day but for me that’s the Hangzhou weather you got to have. The next day was bright and sunny and all the flower paddles, seeds, leaves that got loose from the rain were flying in the wind. It’s quite impressive that the city planning of Hangzhou is formed as an infinite park around the west lake. There are amazing amount of public space for people to spend time out door.

The reason of this Hangzhou trip is the art show in Hangzhou Art Academy (aka China Art Academy). My friend Huang Xiaopeng is in the show and also with works from his students in the lab in Guangzhou Art Academy. There are two parts of the exhibitions: Unpack and 18 Cases studies of experimental art. The goal was to present and include Chinese contemporary art in Chinese art colleges. From the opening speech, it’s also an attempt to raise the status of Chinese contemporary art from “amateurism” to “academic”.

Hangzhou has the best spring I have ever seen.

One of the most interesting piece in the show, Huang Xiaopeng’s installation: “CCTV is in operation. Please keep your smile”. (more…)

Hello! My blog is back finally after 2 months unavailable. Yes I am still in Guangzhou right now. And I am working with about 140 students from Sun Yat-sen University on new media art and experimental video. Every Thursday and Tuesday about this time, my brain is normally not very active anymore after six hours teaching with two classes. But today Jon gave the students a web workshop in class. So Hive-five to Jon!

The students are very interesting because they mostly didn’t have background in art before entering the university. Therefore to me they have great potential to be shaped and formed. Some of them have produced very exciting projects in the class. It’s amazing for me to see some of them change in their work. And I try to make sure to assign them home work that can change their normal way of thinking and leave enough freedom for them make decision and take action. But of course you can’t always predict what the result is especially having a large group of people.